- Country or region
- Norway
- Trade topics
- Dispute settlement
- Context
- WTO - Complaint against the EU
Summary of the case
- Complaint by: Norway
- Complaint against: EU
- Third parties: Argentina, Canada, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Namibia, Russian Federation, United States
On 5 November 2009 Norway requested consultations with the EC in respect of Regulation (EC) No. 1007/2009 of the European Parliament and the Council on trade in seal products. The Regulation was adopted on 16 September 2009 and was published on 31 October 2009. It enters into force 20 days after publication. The Regulation prohibits the marketing of products derived from seals on the EU market, and is enforced on the border. It applies to seal products produced in the EU and imported products. It does not apply to transit through the EU. The marketing prohibition entered into force on 20 August 2010. On 10 August 2010 the Commission adopted regulation 737/2010, which lays down implementing measures, which also entered into force on 20 August 2010. Norway has alleged that these measures are inconsistent with Article 2.2 of the TBT Agreement, Articles I:1, III:4 and XI:1 of GATT 1994 and Article 4.2 of the Agreement on Agriculture
Relevant WTO provision: Article 4.2 of the Agriculture Agreement; Article 2.2 of the TBT Agreement; and Articles I:1, III:4 and XI:1 of the GATT 1994
Status
Canada and Norway launched WTO dispute settlement proceedings against the EU’s Seal regime in 2009. On 25 November 2013, the WTO circulated the final panel report to all Members. Canada and Norway appealed the report on 24 January. The Appellate Body issued its final ruling on 22 May 2014. The Panel and Appellate Body rejected the claims of Canada and Norway against the ban itself.
The Panel and Appellate Body accepted that the ban pursues a legitimate objective (public moral concerns on seal welfare) and is not more trade restrictive than necessary. However, the Appellate Body found that there was a de facto violation of the most-favoured nation treatment obligation (Article I GATT) because seal products from Greenland were treated more favourably than seal products from Canada through the exception for products derived from Inuit hunts. It found that this difference in treatment could in principle be justified under the exception of GATT (Article XX) for public morals but found that the EU had failed to design the legislation to prevent arbitrary discrimination and should have made more efforts to encourage Canadian Inuit to use the exception.
The Panel also found that the discrimination resulting from the exception for hunts conducted in the framework of maritime resource management cannot be justified and thus violates Article 2.1 TBT Agreement as well as Article III:4 GATT ( without being justified under Article XX GATT). In reverse of the Panel’s findings, the Appellate Body rejected the characterisation of the regime as a technical regulation and therefore found moot and without legal effect all findings under the TBT Agreement.
The panel and Appellate Body reports have been adopted by the DSB on 18 June 2014. The EU was granted a reasonable period for implementation which expires on 18 October 2015.
- Consultations requested: 05 November 2009