The WTO Consistency of Inclusion of Trade Remedy provisions within the East Africa Community Customs Union.
Date
2020-11
Authors
WAMALWA, NEKESA STEPHANIE
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
Recent Developments on Trade Remedy Regimes have sought to challenge the consistency of Customs Unions and Free Trade Areas establishing trade remedy laws of their own. Various Scholars both, economist and legal have produced literature claiming that trade remedies under Customs Unions established in Article XXIV of the GATT 1994 is inconsistent with the object and purpose of the GATT on trade remedies in general. Recently very few customs unions in Africa have developed various trade remedy laws to govern and regulate trade within their territories. One of these customs union is the East African Community (EAC). In this study, we will seek to prove the consistency of the trade remedy provisions within the Protocol Establishing the EAC Customs Union through studying the effects of the execution of the laws amongst the
Member States of the EAC. The study will concentrate on studying the compliance of the EAC Customs Union trade remedy provisions with the WTO.
Description
The World Trade Organization (WTO) upholds and sticks to a core WTO principle of the Most
Favored Nation (MFN) principle. The MFN treatment obligation is found in Article I: I of GATT 1994. For a measure to be consistent with the MFN principle then it must meet the criteria set out by the four tier test under Article 1:1 GATT.2 This criteria is : 1) the measure must fall under the scope of application of Article 1:1 GATT; 2) the measure must confer and advantage; 3) the products concerned must be like products; 4) the advantage must be conferred immediately and unconditionally.