Do the recent WTO rulings related to product labelling provide enough flexibility for Members to achieve various non-trade policy objectives? WTO Members and consumers have largely ignored the implications for product labelling emanating from the Appellate Body’s decisions in US-Tuna II and US-COOL , giving proof to Aldous Huxley’s maxim in Brave New World that, “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.” [Ref 1] These two cases could have a profound effect on how WTO Members regulate product labelling and on how manufacturers use labels to influence consumer behaviour, including for environmental and other social purposes. US-Tuna II In 2012 the Appellate Body found that a US “dolphin safe” labelling programme designed to prevent dolphin deaths arising from tuna fishing practices in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) violated the non-discrimination obligation found in Article 2.1 of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement). The decision is noteworthy as the Appellate Body found nothing wrong with a WTO Member applying its law to regulate the labelling of how a product is manufactured outside its jurisdiction but sold within. Instead, the US trade measure was struck down under Article 2.1 on the grounds...
Written by Arthur E. Appleton
