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Regulation of Seal Animal Welfare Risk, Public Morals and Inuit Culture under WTO Law: Between Techne, Oikos and Praxis

Editor’s Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Alexia Herwig
Alexia Herwig*
Affiliation:
University of Antwerp
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Abstract

The EC-Seal Products case raises a number of interesting issues for scholars researching in the broad area of risk regulation. This symposium addresses a selection of them through innovative, analytical contributions whose goals are to test central assumptions and question the logic of the findings and to bring fresh solutions to problems faced by the Appellate Body and the panel. In keeping with this analytical focus, this introduction to the symposium will not just present a summary of the key legal findings. Instead, it attempts to draw some further conclusions from the different contributions, to place the contributions in their broader legal context and to make connections between aspects (not) decided in Seals and scholarship on risk regulation, more generally.

Type
Symposium on the EU–Seal Products Case
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 382 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015

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References

1 European Communities – Measures Prohibiting the Importation and Marketing of Seal Products, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS400/R, WT/DS401/AB/R, 18 June 2014 and European Communities – Measures Prohibiting the Importation and Marketing of Seal Products, Report of the Panel, WT/DS400/R, WT/DS401/R.

2 Regulation (EC) No. 1007/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on trade in seal products, OJ 2009 L 286.

3 The exceptions are contained in Commission Regulation (EU) No. 737/2010 laying down detailed rules for implementation of the Basic Regulation, OJ 2010 L 216.

4 The total number of annual European MRM seals was less than 90.

5 EC – Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, para. 5.334.

6 The panel did not apply the TBT test of Art. 2.1 focusing on whether detrimental impacts stem exclusively from a regulatory distinction under its GATT analysis. EC-Seals, Report of the Panel, supra note 1, paras. 7.607-7.609.

7 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, para. 5.70.

8 Bartels, Lorand, “The WTO Legality of the Application of the EU’s Emission Trading System to Aviation”,23 European Journal of International Law (2012), pp. 429 et sqq, at p. 452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 TBT Agreement, Art. 2.2.

10 TBT Agreement, Art. 2.4

11 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, paras. 5.279, 5.290, 5.320-5.339; EC-Seals, Report of the Panel, supra note 1, at paras. 7.302-7.319, 7.504.

12 Philip I. Levy and Donald H. Regan, ‘EC-Seal Products (TBT Aspects of the Panel and Appellate Body Reports): Seals and Sensibilities, forthcoming in World Trade Review, available in draft on SSRN.com, p. 57.

13 European Communities – Measures Affecting Asbestos and Asbestos–Containing Products, Report of the Appellate Body, WTI Doc., WT/DS135/AB/R, 12 March 2001, para. 100.

14 Dominican Republic – Measures Affecting the Importation and Internal Sale of Cigarettes, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS302/AB/R, 19 May 2005, para. 96

15 United States – Measures Affecting the Production and Sale of Clove Cigarettes, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS406/AB/R, 14 April 2012, paras. 175, 181-2; United States – Certain Country of Origin Labelling (COOL) Requirements, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS384/AB/R, adopted 23 July 2012, paras. 271, 373-379,, United States, Measures Concerning the Importation, Marketing and Sale of Tuna and Tuna Products, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS381/AB/R, 13 June 2012, paras. 215, 315-322.

16 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, para. 5.117.

17 Ibid., paras. 5.121-5.125.

18 See case law cited at n. 15 supra.

19 EC – Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, para. 5.127-5.129.

20 EC–Asbestos, supra note 13, para. 168; Korea –Measures Affecting Imports of Fresh, Chilled and Frozen Beef, Report of the Appellate Body, WTO Doc., WT/DS161/AB/R, WT/DS169/1B/R, 10 January 2001, para. 176 and in the context of a public morals policy itself, United States – Measures Affecting the Cross–Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services, WTO Doc., WT/DS285/R, 20 April 2005, para. 6.461.

21 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, paras. 5.217; EC-Seals, Report of the Panel, supra note 1, paras. 7. 445, 7.447, 7.451-2, 7.453-7.455, 7.460 and 7.638.

22 EC-Seals, Report of the Panel, supra note 1, paras. 7.401, 7.402.

23 Herwig, Alexia, “Too much Zeal on Seals? Animal Welfare, Public Morals and Consumer Ethics at the Bar of the WTO” fortcoming in World Trade Review, at p. 13.Google Scholar

24 Donald H. Regan, ‘Measures with Multiple Purposes: Puzzles from EC–Seal Products’, forthcoming in American Journal of International Law Unbound.

25 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, paras. 5.320-5.339.

26 Lorand Bartels, “The Chapeau of Article XX GATT: A New Interpretation”, University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series, Paper No. 40/2014 (July 2014), pp. 7, 10-14.

27 Howse, Robert and Langille, Joanna, “Permitting Pluralism: the Seal Products Dispute and Why the WTO Should Accept Trade Restrictions Justified by Noninstrumental Moral Values”, 37 Yale Journal of International Law (2012), 367 et sqq. at p. 412.Google Scholar

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30 Echols, Marsha, Food Safety and the WTO: The Interplay of Culture, Science and Technology (Kluwer Law International, 2001).Google Scholar

31 Herwig, “Zeal on Seals”, supra note 23, at p. 10-11.

32 Ibid., at p. 19.

33 EC-Seals, Report of the Appellate Body, supra note 1, para. 5.198.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid., para. 5.199.

37 Fried, Barbara, Fried, B. 2012. “Can Contractualism Save Us from Aggregation?”, 16 Journal of Ethics (2012), pp. 39 et sqq., passim. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 James, Aaron, “Contractualism's (Not So) Slippery Slope”. 18 Legal Theory (2012), pp. 262 et sqq., passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar