Special and Differential Treatment of Developing Countries

Abstract

The intellectual keystone of the GATT-WTO multilateral trade system is that economic development is best achieved through non-discriminatory trade patterns, the progressive reduction of tariffs, and the elimination of nontariff barriers that block trade flows. Still, non-discrimination is not a shibboleth in the GATT-WTO system. To cite just one example, the scores of regional trade arrangements that have proliferated over the past decade honor the MFN obligation in the breach. And so it is with developing countries under GATT 1994 and the WTO MTAs. During the initial GATT-ITO negotiations in 1947 the view was accepted that the principle of equality of treatment among countries is inappropriate when countries are not economic equals. Within the GATT-WTO system, the concept of preferential treatment of developing countries (or special and differential treatment in GATT parlance) made its way into the permanent legal structure of GATT 1947 and its many subsidiary agreements. In a nutshell, the rules requiring MFN treatment of imported goods regardless of origin were altered in the case of imports from developing countries.¹

For analyses of the role of developing countries in the GATT-WTO system, see WTO, High Level Symposium on Trade and Development, Background Document (1999); Robert E. Hudec, Developing Countries in the Gatt Legal System (1987); Diana Tussie, The Less Developed Countries and the World Trading System: A Challenge to the Gatt (1987); Abdulqawi Yusuf, Legal Aspects of Trade Preferences for Developing States: A Study in the Influence of Development Needs on the Evolution of International Law (1982); F.V. Garcia-Amador, the Emerging International Law of Development: A New Dimension of International Economic Law (1990); World Bank, the Uruguay Round and the Developing Economies (Will Martin and L. Alan Winters eds. 1995); John H. Jackson, World Trade and the Law of GATT § 25.1–25.7 (1969); Kenneth W. Dam, the GATT: Law and International Economic Organization 376–85 (1970); Bartram S. Brown, Developing Countries in the International Trade Order, 14 N. Ill. U.L. Rev. 347 (1994); Note, Developing Countries and Multilateral Trade Agreements: Law and the Promise of Development, 108 Harv. L. Rev. 1715 (1995); Robert E. Hudec, GATT and the Developing Countries, 1 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 67 (1992).