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Friday, 8 March 2019 - 1.00pm
Location: 
Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Finley Library

Lecture summary: The WTO Agreement on TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) aims at taming NTBs (nontariff barriers), the main instrument segmenting markets nowadays. Some of the terms used in TBT to flesh out the commitments undertaken are borrowed from the GATT, and some originate in the modern regulatory reality as expressed through SDOs (standard-development organizations). The TBT does not share a copy-cat function with the GATT, though. Alas, the WTO Appellate Body, by understanding words as ‘invariances’, e.g., interpreting them out of context (without asking what is the purpose for the TBT?), has not only exported its GATT case law, but also misapplied it into the realm of TBT, and ended up with significant errors. In what follows, we explain why the current approach is erroneous, and advance an alternative understanding, which could help implement the TBT in a manner faithful to its negotiating intent, and objective function.

Petros C. Mavroidis is Edwin Parker Professor of Law at CLS. Acted as chief reporter for the American Law Institute study on International Trade Law: the WTO. His latest major publication is The Regulation of International Trade, MIT Press, 2016.

 

The Lauterpacht Centre Friday lecture series is kindly supported by Cambridge University Press

 

A sandwich lunch is available for all attendees from 12.30 pm in the Old Library.

 

Numbers are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Please note the lecture programme is subject to revision without notice.

 

An audio recording of this lecture is available on the University's Streaming Media Service

 

A list of all recorded events and lectures at the Lauterpacht Centre can be viewed in on this website in Media/Audio recordings.

Lauterpacht Centre for International Law

 

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