by Miguelito » Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:31 pm
TheGrimReaper wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2019 10:28 pm
Normally I can find my way around the Net quite well including places not normally accessible but after several hours of trying to just get past the index and access to the WTO rules (over 60 downloadable documents from the Uruguay Final Round), it became pretty obvious that the WTO is no better than any other giant bureaucracy when it comes to explaining things in plain language. The conclusion I arrived at is probably the same as most of you. Bureaucrats deliberately complicate texts and make access to them nigh on impossible for the average Joe. Little wonder that all of the Government/Civil Service/EU lawyers have different opinions. It keeps them in work living the sort of life most people can only dream about.
I challenge anyone to read and understand the general agreement. There are 6 further documents that instruct member states on how to understand some but not all of the interpretations of sections of this document. Bloody hard when some languages do not translate easily into English or vice versa.
https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47.pdf
You must not have looked very hard.
The Uruguay Round of negotiations brought together the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT) and twelve other agreements as annexes to the new World Trade Organization, or WTO, which all comprise of one overarching agreement. Due to the nature of the many agreements being negotiated concurrently, and that how the final product would be comprised was not known until late into the negotiations, there was a chance for conflicts to arise amongst the agreements.
You might argue that the relationships between these text is overly complicated, and there are four possible different relationships between the agreements that could bring about confusion: conflict, express derogation, overlap, and complimentary text.
Look at the General Interpretive Note to Annex 1A which states that:
“In the event of conflict between a provision of the [GATT] and a provision of another agreement in Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (referred to in the agreements in Annex 1A as the ‘WTO Agreement’), the provision of the other agreement shall prevail to the extent of the conflict.”
The Appellate Body (AB) has reinforced this, although it has taken a hardline stance on the definition of the word “conflict,” and that “provisions are in conflict where adherence to the one provision will necessarily lead to a violation of the other provision and the provisions cannot, therefore, be read as complementing each other.” If, however, a true conflict does exist, then the other agreements in Annex 1A will take precedence.
A closely related problem to conflict is that of ‘express derogation,’ or when one agreement expressly permits the breaking of a GATT obligation. In this case, as if there were a conflict, the agreement will take precedence. However, as ruled in EC - Bananas, the agreement must explicitly state the inconsistency, and not just allude to it; in fact, the AB cited several examples that did explicitly state that, and therefore did now allow one that was simply implied.
If an unresolvable conflict or an express derogation do not go against, then the clauses of both the other agreement and the GATT with accumulate. This could happen if there were overlapping statements (repetitive), or complimentary (one agreement that is more specific than the other). The panel report on EC - Sardines states that the “Appellate Body suggests that where two agreements apply simultaneously, a panel should normally consider the more specific agreement before the more general agreement.” Further cases that confirm this are EC - Bananas (which first tackled the subject), Brazil - Coconut, Korea - Dairy Product, Argentina - Footwear, as well as in Turkey - Textile in which the AB stated “as a general principle, WTO obligations are cumulative and Members must comply with all of them at all times unless there is a formal ‘conflict’ between them.”
The AB will “defer to the legislative solution advanced in an understanding to the extent that it regulates an issue left unregulated or obscure in the GATT.” The AB, in its report on Turkey - Textiles showed total deference to the Understanding on Art XXIV of the GATT, in which the report stated, in no uncertain terms that “this issue has been resolved by paragraph 2 of the Understanding on Article XXIV, which clearly states that the applied rate of duty must be used.”
For a good background you can refer to Mavroidis, P.C. (2008) ‘From GATT 1947 to GATT 1994’, Trade in Goods, Chapter 1, Oxford Scholarship Online.
Dude, these agreements are the law -- I just wrote out the above to show that of course they're going to be complicated and people are going to fight over it -- that happens with every law about any subject...ever. There will also be the stated law, and then case interpretation. Yes, it's confusing, but at least we have google now.
Decide on a specific WTO item you want to complain about and we can discuss further.
[quote=TheGrimReaper post_id=980849 time=1565796488 user_id=51626]
Normally I can find my way around the Net quite well including places not normally accessible but after several hours of trying to just get past the index and access to the WTO rules (over 60 downloadable documents from the Uruguay Final Round), it became pretty obvious that the WTO is no better than any other giant bureaucracy when it comes to explaining things in plain language. The conclusion I arrived at is probably the same as most of you. Bureaucrats deliberately complicate texts and make access to them nigh on impossible for the average Joe. Little wonder that all of the Government/Civil Service/EU lawyers have different opinions. It keeps them in work living the sort of life most people can only dream about.
I challenge anyone to read and understand the general agreement. There are 6 further documents that instruct member states on how to understand some but not all of the interpretations of sections of this document. Bloody hard when some languages do not translate easily into English or vice versa.
https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47.pdf
[/quote]
You must not have looked very hard. ;)
The Uruguay Round of negotiations brought together the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT) and twelve other agreements as annexes to the new World Trade Organization, or WTO, which all comprise of one overarching agreement. Due to the nature of the many agreements being negotiated concurrently, and that how the final product would be comprised was not known until late into the negotiations, there was a chance for conflicts to arise amongst the agreements.
You might argue that the relationships between these text is overly complicated, and there are four possible different relationships between the agreements that could bring about confusion: conflict, express derogation, overlap, and complimentary text.
Look at the General Interpretive Note to Annex 1A which states that:
“In the event of conflict between a provision of the [GATT] and a provision of another agreement in Annex 1A to the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (referred to in the agreements in Annex 1A as the ‘WTO Agreement’), the provision of the other agreement shall prevail to the extent of the conflict.”
The Appellate Body (AB) has reinforced this, although it has taken a hardline stance on the definition of the word “conflict,” and that “provisions are in conflict where adherence to the one provision will necessarily lead to a violation of the other provision and the provisions cannot, therefore, be read as complementing each other.” If, however, a true conflict does exist, then the other agreements in Annex 1A will take precedence.
A closely related problem to conflict is that of ‘express derogation,’ or when one agreement expressly permits the breaking of a GATT obligation. In this case, as if there were a conflict, the agreement will take precedence. However, as ruled in EC - Bananas, the agreement must explicitly state the inconsistency, and not just allude to it; in fact, the AB cited several examples that did explicitly state that, and therefore did now allow one that was simply implied.
If an unresolvable conflict or an express derogation do not go against, then the clauses of both the other agreement and the GATT with accumulate. This could happen if there were overlapping statements (repetitive), or complimentary (one agreement that is more specific than the other). The panel report on EC - Sardines states that the “Appellate Body suggests that where two agreements apply simultaneously, a panel should normally consider the more specific agreement before the more general agreement.” Further cases that confirm this are EC - Bananas (which first tackled the subject), Brazil - Coconut, Korea - Dairy Product, Argentina - Footwear, as well as in Turkey - Textile in which the AB stated “as a general principle, WTO obligations are cumulative and Members must comply with all of them at all times unless there is a formal ‘conflict’ between them.”
The AB will “defer to the legislative solution advanced in an understanding to the extent that it regulates an issue left unregulated or obscure in the GATT.” The AB, in its report on Turkey - Textiles showed total deference to the Understanding on Art XXIV of the GATT, in which the report stated, in no uncertain terms that “this issue has been resolved by paragraph 2 of the Understanding on Article XXIV, which clearly states that the applied rate of duty must be used.”
For a good background you can refer to Mavroidis, P.C. (2008) ‘From GATT 1947 to GATT 1994’, Trade in Goods, Chapter 1, Oxford Scholarship Online.
Dude, these agreements are the law -- I just wrote out the above to show that of course they're going to be complicated and people are going to fight over it -- that happens with every law about any subject...ever. There will also be the stated law, and then case interpretation. Yes, it's confusing, but at least we have google now.
Decide on a specific WTO item you want to complain about and we can discuss further.