Abstract
In EC—Seal Products, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) held that the European Union (EU) Seal Regime banning the importation of seal products could be justified under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XX(a) as a measure necessary toprotect public morals. It also held that the indigenous communities (IC) exception under the EU Seal Regime is inconsistent with GATT Article I:1 (Most-Favored Nation) because it discriminated against commercial fishers in Canada and Norway and was applied in a manner that favored the mostly Inuit seal hunters of Greenland, and thus ran afoul of Article XX’s chapeau. Since the entire EU Seal Regime is not likely to be done away with, the most important question for Inuit communities is: how will the EU change the discriminatory aspects of the Seal Regime and IC exception? The EU faces an October deadlineto pass its new legislation and this remains a very live issue.
Highlights
In EC—Seal Products[1], the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) held that the European Union (EU) Seal Regime[2] banning the importation of seal products could be justified under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XX(a)[3] as a measure necessary to protect public morals
It held that the indigenous communities (IC) exception under the EU Seal Regime is inconsistent with GATT Article I:1 (Most-Favored Nation) because it discriminated against commercial fishers in Canada and Norway and was applied in a manner that favored the mostly Inuit seal hunters of Greenland, and ran afoul of Article XX’s chapeau
Since the entire EU Seal Regime is not likely to be done away with, the most important question for Inuit communities is: how will the EU change the discriminatory aspects of the Seal Regime and IC exception? The EU faces an October deadline to pass its new legislation and this remains a very live issue.[4]
Summary
In EC—Seal Products[1], the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body (AB) held that the European Union (EU) Seal Regime[2] banning the importation of seal products could be justified under General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XX(a)[3] as a measure necessary to protect public morals. In Canada, many Inuit leaders were angry.[6] One reason was because the ban was upheld on moral terms— implying a judgment against an important means by which Inuit communities eat and trade. Another criticism was that despite claims of some consultation by the EU, the IC exception was not really designed by or in negotiation with Inuit.[7] A related problem was that the exception was useless because it was never operationalized and applied to the Canadian Inuit. Terry Audla, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami[10] stated after the AB decision, “[O]ur
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