Re-Examining reciprocity: North–South agreements and WTO disciplines on PTAs

The current legal texts of the WTO reflect these principles, particularly with respect to GATT Article XXIV – the requirement that all preferential trading agreements (PTAs) between WTO Members liberalize “substantially all trade”.

This project starts from the assumption that recent North–South PTAs have shown that the substantially all trade requirement may generate perverse outcomes bearing no relation to the ideas underlying the concept of reciprocity in GATT. This runs counter to the stated objectives of a development round and the ongoing review of Article XXIV where the interests of developing countries should be prioritized. The project pursues two objectives: documenting the discrepancy between the ideals of the WTO system, its legal provisions and the reality of North–South PTAs; and developing a new vision of reciprocity in the WTO based on a reformulated legal framework encompassing both GATT Article XXIV and GATS Article V.