The WTO Case-Law on the Relation Between the Marrakesh System and Regional Trade Agreements

While the WTO system is the pillar of international trade, its difficulties to deepen and widen the multilateral trade discipline have provoked the negotiations of many RTAs, in particular of mega-regionals like the TPP, CETA, TTIP, or the RCEP. The positive WTO rules concerning RTAs -i.e. Article XXIV of the GATT 1994, paragraphs 2(c) and 3(a) of the Enabling Clause, and Article V of the GATS- have inspired much controversy, generated quite considerable uncertainty, and consequently have not been fully implemented. Therefore, the practice is far from producing satisfying mechanisms coordinating the multilateral and regional systems. The case-law, in particular, the WTO case-law, concerning the relations between WTO and RTAs systems becomes thus essential to provide for a clearer legal picture on the interaction of universal and regional trade rules, and so endow with a certain level of predictability the economic operators, stakeholders and civil society, and, more generally, all the interested and involved international actors. The present article hence intends to analyze the existing WTO case-law on the topic, after a brief presentation of the state-of-the-art of the WTO discipline and practice concerning RTAs. We will then propose some tentative conclusions, also considering the compatibility clauses and the so called choice of forum rules adopted in one of the main mega-regionals, i.e. CETA, as such agreement has been very recently approved by the European Parliament and Canada’s House of Commons.