Critically Assess the Scope, Meaning and Relevance of Essay

Critically Assess the Scope, Meaning and Relevance of Non-Discrimination in WTO Agreements - Essay Example Introduction WTO (World Trade Organisation) is a global institution that facilitates a free trade to happen in the world. The phrase â€Å"free trade† is always misconstrued since it does not connote that it is a free to trade from one nation to another nation. The WTO rules permit tariffs and other varieties of restrictions that assist to safeguard a nation from unfair trades. Thus , the phrase â€Å" free trade â€Å" can better be explained as a market where business can happen in an open and a fair field where there exists no ingenuous competition. By including a non-discrimination clause, WTO facilitates that a free trade exists in the international level. All countries that are members of WTO have consented to play fair in all their business transactions. This is made possible by demanding all trades to be made in the public eye. A WTO member country should not have a restriction to any trade that is being offered to one company and the same restriction would extend to all the companies which indulge in the same type of commerce. Among the non-discrimination measures, the most renowned ones are the national treatment and the most favoured nations. These two clauses under the guise of non-discrimination appear in some form or other in the† GATS (The General Agreement on Trade in Services), the GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), the TRIPS (the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights)† and in other numerous WTOs agreements1. In addition to â€Å"National Treatment (NT) and Most Favoured Nations (MFN), WTO also have more commonly termed anti-discrimination provisions, some important illustrations of which contain non-discrimination clauses in GATS Article XIV, other Agreements on the... Non-discrimination principle mainly revolves round the concept of treating all foreign services or products equivalent to the like domestic services or products. The doctrine of non-discrimination was intended specifically to thwart protectionism and to make sure that equal treatment is being given to both domestic and foreign goods. A question arises whether goods may be treated diversely since the manner in which they have been manufactured, even if the manufacturing process employed does not put down a mark in the end product. Further, it is to be noted that when contrasting two goods, different production methods or processes (PPMs) might have been employed in the manufacture of such goods, which do not per se make these goods â€Å"unlike.† For example, governments may like to differentiate between wood where the production process is not known and wood products emanated from the sustainably grown forest. Under these circumstances, the evaluation of similarity between two kinds of wood if the two varieties of wood may be especially difficult. For this, the evaluation of likeness between two goods or products should be done on each case basis, which was mentioned by the Appellate Body in EC-Asbestos case to find out whether there is a discrimination or not.