Technical Barriers to Trade Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements

Abstract

The proliferation of regional trade agreements (“RTAs”) behoves all WTO members to assess the extent to which RTAs depart from fundamental principles in the WTO such as the most-favoured-nation (“MFN”) treatment in the GATT and in particular, the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. This paper focuses on technical barriers to trade (“TBT”) provisions in RTAs concluded by the United States, European Union, Australia and Singapore and finds that these TBT provisions complement the existing disciplines in the TBT Agreement. To the extent that TBT provisions in RTAs may be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement, this paper examines the extent to which they can be justified under Article XXIV of GATT. This paper concludes that the ambiguity of key terms in Article XXIV of GATT allows WTO Members to adopt an expansive interpretation of the scope of Article XXIV of GATT.