Speaker: Professor Peter van den Bossche, Director of the World Trade Institute and former World Trade Organization Appellate Body Member
Chair/Discussant: David Collins, The City Law School
Abstract
Prof Van den Bossche will be discussing some of the recent developments in the interaction between World Trade Organization (WTO) rules which govern the liberalization of trade in goods and services and its permitted exceptions for ‘essential security’ contained in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Recent WTO caselaw has demonstrated that the self-judging essential security exception is indeed justiciable by WTO panels, potentially exacerbating tensions with countries seeking to impose trade restrictions in sensitive industries.
These issues have become all the more pressing given the current state of geopolitics as well as the emergence of economic nationalism in which trade protectionism is often disguised as national security.
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