Topics handled by WTO committees and agreements
Issues covered by the WTO’s committees and agreements

 REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS: RULES
The WTO’s rules

When a WTO member enters into a regional integration arrangement through which it grants more favourable conditions to its trade with other parties to that arrangement than to other WTO members’ trade, it departs from the guiding principle of non-discrimination defined in Article I of GATT, Article II of GATS, and elsewhere.

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WTO Members are however permitted to enter into such arrangements under specific conditions which are spelled out in three sets of rules:

  • Paragraphs 4 to 10 of Article XXIV of GATT (as clarified in the Understanding on the Interpretation of Article XXIV of the GATT 1994) provide for the formation and operation of customs unions and free-trade areas covering trade in goods ;

  • the so-called Enabling Clause (i.e., the 1979 Decision on Differential and More Favorable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries) refers to preferential trade arrangements in trade in goods between developing country Members; and

  • Article V of GATS governs the conclusion of RTAs in the area of trade in services, for both developed and developing countries.

Other non-generalized preferential schemes, for example non-reciprocal preferential agreements involving developing and developed countries, require Members to seek a waiver from WTO rules. Such waivers require the approval of three quarters of WTO Members. Examples of such agreements which are currently in force include the US — Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), the CARIBCAN agreement whereby Canada offers duty-free non-reciprocal access to most Caribbean countries, Turkey-Preferential treatment for Bosnia-Herzegovina and the EC-ACP Partnership Agreement.