Technical barriers to trade notifications and dispute settlement within the WTO

Jan Jakub Michałek,Mahdi Ghodsi Ghodsi

doi:10.12775/equil.2016.010

Jan Jakub Michałek, Mahdi Ghodsi Ghodsi

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.12775/equil.2016.010

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to verify empirically whether the Specific Trade Concerns (STCs) regarding Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) notifications by WTO members can serve as an early warning system for past and future disputes (DS) covering allegedly trade restricting TBTs. WTO members, in order to increase transparency of trade policies, have made efforts to compile data on notified TBTs. For several years the WTO provides a TBT dataset, used in our paper, which covers the STCs raised by its members (“reverse” notifications). From 1995-2011, there have been 45 requests for consultation under the Dispute Settlement (DS) Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in order to identify possible violations of the technical barriers to trade (TBT) agreement. This paper attempts to find the linkages between DS cases citing the TBT agreement and the STC data regarding TBTs. The DS Body’s decisions regarding possible violations of the TBT agreement are discussed in detail. Afterwards, we analyze, descriptively and econometrically, the relationship between notified STCs and DS consultations regarding TBTs.

Highlights

Eight Multilateral Rounds of Trade negotiations under the GATT have contributed significantly to the reduction of import tariffs among World Trade Organization (WTO) members
Having country sizes in the estimation, a new Specific Trade Concern (STC) raised by a partner country on a TBT imposed by an importer on a specific category of products is expected to increase the probability of a Dispute Settlement (DS) case being requested by the partner on the given product by about 1.60 times
We present a summary of the STC database on TBT

Summary

Introduction

Eight Multilateral Rounds of Trade negotiations under the GATT have contributed significantly to the reduction of import tariffs among World Trade Organization (WTO) members. Non-tariff measures (NTMs) have become relatively more important. The MultiAgency Support Team (MAST) described NTMs as follows: “Non-tariff measures are generally defined as policy measures other than ordinary customs tariffs that can potentially have an economic effect on international trade in goods, changing quantities traded, or prices or both.”. According to the MAST classification (UNCTAD/DITC/TAB/2012/2), NTMs include 16 categories. The first and the second category, which are the most frequently notified by WTO members, are sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, and technical barriers to trade (TBT). TBTs are “measures referring to technical regulations, and procedures for assessment of conformity with technical regulations and standards, excluding measures covered by the SPS Agreement.”

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