Unit 6 - Readings & Viewings

Look at the language of GATT/WTO Agreement Article III, then read:

a. Japan - Taxes on Alcoholic Beverages (DS8) (look at appeal for Art III)

b. United States - Measures Affecting the Importation, Internal Sale and Use of Tobacco (DS44/R)(consider domestic sourcing under Article III)

What are the tests for “like products,” discrimination and specifying local content? Read these dispute resolution decisions like any other cases, but remember that there is formally no doctrine of precedent in international law.  How can you articulate a “rule of the case” under such circumstances, or is the argument about no doctrine of precedent just a further example of resistance to a rules-based trade law system?  We shall assign a student group to look further at this.

For the Sports Illustrated dispute, read first for the factual background

a. Canadian Magazine Industry and Cultural Protectionism

b. Canada:  Certain Measures Concerning Periodicals (DS 31, 1996)

All students should take a quick look at the one-page summary of findings, but we shall assign one student group to read both the panel and appellate opinion portions on Art III to articulate the formal reasonings and questions about the outcome.

As background on the cross-border e-commerce (services) issue, look at:

a. GATS Articles I and XVII (Article I recites modes of delivery for services, while Article XVII is actually the GATS national treatment provision (GATS Article II is the services MFN provision)

b. What does TPP mean for the open internet? (IIEP Policy Brief 2015)

c. Then, as necessary you can consult the original TPP text

Or the TPP 11 text (aka the Comprehensive and Progressive TPP Agreement, to which the US is not a party, but which was signed by the remaining 11 TPP member states following some minor renegotiation to take the US out of the original TPP text)

4/4 We look at the TPP as the first FTA to really address the digital economy questions, because the digital economy was hardly a glimmer in anyone’s eye when NAFTA as the first really modern US FTA came into force in 1994 (so all this is very recent law).  Remember, President Trump abandoned the TPP negotiated under the Obama Administration, but the 11 other countries proceeded with TPP as what is now referred to as “TPP-11”--  could US multinationals take advance of this?  Sure, the US has an FTA with Singapore, and Singapore is a TPP member, so if the multinational has a Singapore subsidiary, that subsidiary as a Singapore national could presumably claim the TPP’s benefits, even if the US is not a signatory;  meanwhile the US itself as non-signatory has no claim to raise).  That is why binational chambers of commerce like the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore came out strongly in favour of the “TPP-11 version” after President Trump abandoned the TPP.  (So sophisticated clients rely also on trade law arrangements beyond US agreements.)  One part of that is the idea simply that the private sector is just looking for any way to protect itself, but another is the implicit message of “strength in numbers” in the trade area.  Again, we look at TPP simply because matters like the digital economy have been the subject of discussion under the GATS (multilateral, WTO) process, but without final result given the as yet inconclusive Doha Round.  The revised NAFTA US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA or NAFTA 2.0) essentially incorporates the TPP digital economy provisions.  If you look at the text, Chapter 19 has specific coverage, but it refers to various other chapters by way of inclusion.  Looking at this from the client perspective, assuming the Regional Common Economic Partnership (RCEP) includes Singapore and comes into force in the not too distant future, would they play the US-Singapore FTA and RCEP the same way, why or why not?