The Doha Problem

The WTO has just published the request by Qatar for consultations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia concerning their trade restrictions. I quickly skimmed through the requests and found a few interesting points:

1. This is the second time a WTO Member has made consultation requests simultaneously against 3 WTO Members on essentially the same issues. The first time this happened was 5 years ago, when China brought the complaint against European Union, Italy and Greece against their Renewable Energy subsidies. However, because that case was brought under one consultation request, it was treated as one dispute. In the current case, 3 separate requests were filed. Thus, this is the first time a WTO Member filed 3 disputes on the same day.
2. The requests specifically note that " Qatar intends that the first sentence of Article 4.11 of the DSU shall not apply to consultations in this dispute. " This means that other WTO Members will not be able to join the disputes as 3rd parties. The interesting question, however, is whether the 3 respondents will be able to join the consultations against the other two. In view of the concerted actions of the 3 states, it might make more sense for Qatar to hold consultations with the 3 respondents collectively. 
3. The requests cover alleged violation of GATT, GATS & TRIPS. In particular, the TRIPS claim refers to " prohibitions or restrictions on displaying and accessing television content over which Qatari nationals hold copyrights and related broadcasting rights". In my view, this is probably better covered under GATS. 
4. The complaints against UAE & Saudi refer to their "blocking of access to certain Qatari service suppliers' websites", so it will touch on some of the interesting issues on the WTO-consistency of internet censorship. 
5. The complaint against Saudi also refers to "measures that prohibit or restrict making of payments to (or receiving of payments by) Qatari television broadcasters" and "Saudi Arabia's prohibition on the making of any payments, by any method, including by credit cards, payment cards, transfers, to certain Qatari service suppliers, either for new subscriptions or renewal of old subscriptions to the companies channels". This seems to be a potential violation of Art. XI.1 of the GATS, but this was not raised in the complaint. 
6. Of course, there is also the interesting question of the security exception defences under GATT XXI & GATS Art IV bis as well.

While there's a good chance that the cases are settled before they proceed to the panel, they will be interesting to follow.