There is growing concern over the use of domestic regulations and standards as technical barriers to trade on the one hand, and the WTO's incursion into domestic regulatory autonomy on the other. The TBT Agreement(TBTA) seeks to balance competing inte...
There is growing concern over the use of domestic regulations and standards as technical barriers to trade on the one hand, and the WTO's incursion into domestic regulatory autonomy on the other. The TBT Agreement(TBTA) seeks to balance competing interests - acknowledging but disciplining Members' regulatory control over traded goods. The effectiveness of these disciplines is limited by the exclusion of many modern domestic regulations from the scope of the TBTA.
This paper will illustrate that the TBT agreement has already exhibited potential to penetrate inappropriately into the domestic regulatory order and threaten domestic regulatory autonomy in unexpected ways, even if many important provisions are still to be elucidated in follow-up dispute settlement practice. To achieve the TBTA's harmonization objectives, the development, and use of international standards and their legal recognition within the WTO regime should be revised to safeguard legitimate non-trade regulatory objectives.