This book offers an in-depth analysis of the WTO security exceptions and relevant rulings by WTO dispute settlement panels. The WTO security exceptions are commonly regarded as the “box of Pandora” of the WTO system, since WTO Member States can invoke them in order to justify trade restrictions violating WTO law which they consider necessary for their essential security interests. The Members of the WTO and the GATT 1947 have hesitated for decades to rely on these security exceptions. In recent years, however, these clauses have been invoked for the first time in high-profile disputes involving Russia and Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as the US, China, the EU and other nations. This has been regarded as the turn of an era in view of the risk that the security exceptions could be instrumentalized to undermine the WTO and the international economic governance system more generally. This study therefore thoroughly analyses the WTO panel reports issued in these landmark cases. It also explains the geopolitical relevance of the increasing invocation of security clauses and argues that the legally and methodologically sound application of the WTO security exceptions, which have often been regarded as “self-judging” provisions, requires a proportionality analysis encompassing tests of the suitability and necessity of the trade measures to be justified under these truly exceptional clauses.

security exceptions
proportionality
economic statecraft
WTO law
national security
defence
good faith
nessecity
weaponization of trade
essential security interests
self-judging clauses
standard of review
Article XXI GATT

• Front Matter
• Introduction: The “Sleeping Dragon” of WTO Law
• (Geo-)Political Background: From Interdependence to “Permanent Exceptionalism”?
• The Security Exceptions in the GATT and TRIPS as Interpreted and Applied
• Methodological Aspects: Curtailing “Trump Cards” Through Good Faith and Proportionality?
• Concluding Remarks
• Back Matter

Institute for European and International Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien), Vienna, Austria
Erich Vranes

Book Title
WTO Security Exceptions in Practice and Scholarship

Book Subtitle
Curtailing “Trump Cards” through Proportionality

Authors
Erich Vranes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36702-1

Softcover ISBN
978-3-031-36701-4
Published: 08 September 2023

eBook ISBN
978-3-031-36702-1
Published: 07 September 2023

Series ISSN
2192-855X

Series E-ISSN
2192-8568

Edition Number
1

Number of Pages
VIII, 70

Topics
International Economic Law, Trade Law, International Security Studies

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