Just for fun, I've been reading the Working Party Report related to the recent Seychelles accession to the WTO (and yes, I am available to come to the Seychelles and give WTO training courses to government officials, in case they are looking for someone). I saw three items of interest in the report.
First up is restrictions on wrong hand drive cars. The report says:
167. Concerning left-hand drive vehicles, the representative of Seychelles said that, since cars were driven on the left-hand side of the road in Seychelles, a ban had been introduced for security reasons as this helped avoid road traffic accidents potentially harmful to human health and safety when manoeuvring and overtaking other vehicles. Certain exemptions from the ban applied to off-road left-hand specialty vehicles, such as golf carts. No exemptions applied to (on-road) specialty vehicles. In further updates, he stated that left-hand drive vehicles would be moved from the prohibited to the restricted list with the enactment of the draft "Customs Management (Prohibited and Restricted Goods) (Amendment) Regulations 2014". This regulation was expected to be adopted by October 2014, but no later than the final Working Party meeting, at which this Report would be adopted, ad referendum.
...
175. Some Members continued to express concerns with regard to the import ban on left-hand vehicles for safety purposes, and asked Seychelles to consider a less trade-restrictive approach.
176. The representative of Seychelles said that the ban on left-hand drive vehicles had been reviewed. As a result, he stated that the ban would be revoked and left-hand drive vehicles would be moved to the restricted list, whereby imports would be subject to an import licence (referred to as "import permit" under national legislation), with the enactment of the draft "Customs Management (Prohibited and Restricted Goods) (Amendment) Regulations 2014". This regulation was expected to be adopted by October 2014, but no later than the final Working Party meeting, at which this Report would be adopted, ad referendum. He added that a completed questionnaire on import licensing procedures, based on these provisions, was contained in document WT/ACC/SYC/14/Rev.2
This also came up in Samoa's accession. If someone is looking for a really obscure research issue that will be of interest to virtually no one, try finding all of the WTO commitments related to wrong-hand drive vehicles, and analyze them!
Second, I was excited to see that Seychelles does not use trade remedies:
216. The representative of Seychelles said that currently Seychelles had no statutory provisions for anti-dumping duties, countervailing duties, or safeguard measures.
Keep up the good work, Seychelles! Or I guess that should be, keep not doing any work on this.
And finally, there's this from the list of "Goods Subject to an Import Prohibition":
Any non-tobacco product which resembles a tobacco product (including sweets, snacks, toys and electronic cigarettes), as per the National Tobacco Control Act, 2009.
These goods are not actually prohibited, I don't think; rather, they just require an import license. But regardless, the e-cigarettes trade disputes are coming! Although I suppose the Seychelles is unlikely to be the first government challenged on its e-cigarettes regulations.