WTO Members - TRAMONTANA Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

WTO Members - TRAMONTANA - Essay Example PATRIA, XENIA and MOLVANIA are WTO Members producing and exporting of cars to TRAMONTANA and some companies within these countries have no plans to move towards the production of recyclable cars. However the industry in MOLVANIA, produces mainly recyclable cars and plans to phase out production of non-recyclable cars shortly and MOLVANIA is considering introducing legislation modeled on TRAMONTANA's recyclable car programme. As a WTO member, TRAMONTANA has breached the obligation of the national treatment where a member should treat foreigners and local equally: Imported and locally-produced goods should be treated equally — at least after the foreign goods have entered the market. The same should apply to foreign and domestic services, and to foreign and local trademarks, copyrights and patents. This principle of â€Å"national treatment† (giving others the same treatment as one’s own nationals) is also found in all the three main WTO agreements (Article 3 of GA TT, Article 17 of GATS and Article 3 of TRIPS), although once again the principle is handled slightly differently in each of these.National treatment only applies once a product, service or item of intellectual property has entered the market. Therefore, charging customs duty on an import is not a violation of national treatment even if locally-produced products are not charged an equivalent tax. TRAMONTANA will pay $300 per recyclable car produced to any domestic car manufacturer. This first measure of its programme is against the WTO obligation of National treatment. - According to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT): "This agreement will extend and clarify the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade reached in the Tokyo Round. It seeks to ensure that technical negotiations and standards, as well as testing and certification procedures, do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. However, it recognizes that countries have the right to establish protection, at levels they consider appropriate, for example for human, animal or plant life or health or the environment, and should not be prevented from taking measures necessary to ensure those levels of protection are met. The agreement therefore encourages countries to use international standards where these are appropriate, but it does not require them to change their levels of protection as a result of standardization." As the agreement states, TRAMONTANA does not have to change its level of protection as a result of standardization. In this case, it forbids non recyclable cars and recyclable cars from countries where non recyclable cars are produced to be imported. 2. As a response to these accusations TRAMONTANA could argue that on the opposite, they want to comply with the objectives of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade like the "Protection of Human safety and Health: The largest number of technical regulations and standards are adopted to aim at protecting human safety or health" and the "Protection of the Environment" which let to adopt this measures. TRAMONTANA can also offer a defense in explaining the set of measures is not to be adopted ate the same moment but gradually, leaving other countries the sufficient time to adapt to the new standards. 3. According to the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes article 10: Third parties Any Member having a substantial interest in a matter before a panel and having notified its interest to the DSB (referred to in this Understanding as a "third party") shall have an opportunity to be heard by the panel and to make written submissions to the panel. These submissions shall also be given to the parties to the dispute and shall be reflected in the panel