1 / 6

There’s Something About MEAs

There’s Something About MEAs. Petros C. Mavroidis Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, Professor at the University of Neuchatel. The Argument. The position at both the legislative and the judicial level of the WTO on MEAs is unclear

kerry-johnson
Download Presentation

There’s Something About MEAs

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. There’s Something About MEAs Petros C. Mavroidis Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, Professor at the University of Neuchatel

  2. The Argument • The position at both the legislative and the judicial level of the WTO on MEAs is unclear • The WTO system accommodates agreements between a sub-part of its Membership • There are lessons to draw for MEAs from this experience WTO Public Forum, September 16, 2010

  3. Fact: Lack of Clarity • Legislation • No specific regulation of the issue • CTE: from CTE/1 (1996) to TN/TE/18 (2008): positive attitude, no concrete results • Not a source of law, interpretative element • Judiciary • US – Shrimp (AB): friendly attitude • EC – Trade in Biotech Products (P): skeptical WTO Public Forum, September 16, 2010

  4. Agreements Between WTO Members A list (a) Non Application (b) PTAs (c) Reciprocity (d) Plurilaterals (e) Annex I SCM item (k): export credits (f) ITA 11/17/2014 WTO Public Forum, September 16, 2010 4

  5. Comparable? • (a), (f) incomparable • PTAs: extension non compulsory, whereas the for the rest [(c), (d)] extension compulsory if conditions are met; MEAs could be either, but likelier the latter • (e): a sub-set of WTO Membership might affect their obligations vis-à-vis rest of the WTO WTO Public Forum, September 16, 2010

  6. What Can We Learn? • MEAs have common elements with (c), (e) and could come into WTO under (d) • Is hostility towards MEAs reasonable? • Both trade and systemic interests for non participants could be affected, but incumbents can successfully thwart challenges by invoking their content without invoking the MEA. Should form trump substance? • MEAs are subsequent agreements (Art. 31 VCLT); the key issue should be whether they impose obligations on non parties (trade + systemic interest) WTO Public Forum, September 16, 2010

More Related