 The National Security Exception at the WTO: should it just be a matter of when members can avail of it? What about how?Mona Paulsen Pinchis-Paulsen, Kamal Saggi and Petros C. Mavroidis LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library Abstract: The GATT security exceptions were practically in hibernation until recently. The recent WTO disputes panel activity concerning such exceptions is characterized by a standard of review that places the accent on ‘when’ action should be taken and not so much on ‘what’ action should be taken. We see two problems with this construction. First, the ‘when’ might be a function of privileged information that those possessing it might be unwilling to divulge in a transparent manner. Second, national security is an amorphous concept, and unless we disaggregate it, it is impossible to pronounce the appropriateness of measures adopted to pursue the underlying objective. In turn, the absence of disaggregation could lead to false positives and negatives, as the same action could be pursuing essential security or providing protection to domestic players. Keywords: national security; WTO (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in World Trade Review, 26, September, 2024, 23(3), pp. 271 - 295. ISSN: 1474-7456 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:121352 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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