An Analysis of Pascal Lamy's Proposal on Collective Preferences

30 Pages Posted: 3 Jan 2005

See all articles by Steve Charnovitz

Steve Charnovitz

George Washington University - Law School

Date Written: December 2004

Abstract

In September 2004, then-European Commissioner for Trade Pascal Lamy released his study on the political challenge of 'collective preferences' for the world trading system. Lamy defines 'collective preferences' as 'the end result of choices made by human communities that apply to the community as a whole'. The adoption of collective preferences by governments can complicate international trade when a good or service from an exporting country is not acceptable in an importing country. Collective preferences cause a problem for the WTO if the resulting measure violates WTO rules and yet the measure is too popular in the regulating country for the government to withdraw it. The paradigmatic example is the European Communities - Hormones dispute in which the European Commission could not comply because of contrary popular and parliamentary opinion. To address cases like that, Lamy proposes the negotiation of a new safeguards provision in the WTO which would permit governments to retain strongly-supported measures provided that compensation is paid. The purpose of this article is to analyze Lamy's paper and to contribute to the continuing international debate on 'collective preferences'. The article concludes that while Lamy's proposal is a worthy idea, achieving it in the WTO is highly unlikely.

Keywords: WTO, international law, European Union, social choice

JEL Classification: A10, F13, H4, K33

Suggested Citation

Charnovitz, Steve, An Analysis of Pascal Lamy's Proposal on Collective Preferences (December 2004). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=639322 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.639322

Steve Charnovitz (Contact Author)

George Washington University - Law School ( email )

2000 H Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20052
United States

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