To say the least, there is some puzzlement among WTO lawyers as to exactly why the AB found that the TBT Agreement did not apply to the EU ban on products from commercial seal hunts.   The AB refered to the fact that the EU ban was based on characteristics of

The AB has held, without ambiguity or qualification, that the EU Parliament's seal products ban is justified as "necessary" for the protection of public morals under GATT Article XX (a), because of the contribution of the ban to the reduction in the number of seals killed

Since the AB's  ruling in US-Cloves on TBT 2.1, where it introduced the notion that a measure does not violate National Treatment or MFN if  the detrimental effects on competition are due exclusively to a legitimate regulatory distinction, there has been much discussion on this blog

This is the first in a series of posts on different specific aspects of the AB ruling in Seal Products.  On the big picture result, Jo Langille, Katie Sykes and I should be commenting in short order in a number of fora. With respect to MFN GATT Article I:1

The long-awaited Appellate Body (AB) report on the Seal dispute has just come out.  There have already been several postings on this report.  Let me focus on one particular issue: the “chapeau” test. In a nutshell, the AB integrated two strands of case law on the chapeau test (one

Global Trade Watch: The WTO today added fuzzy white baby seals clubbed to death on bloody ice flows to dolphins and sea turtles as animals that the WTO has declared cannot be protected by domestic laws because they  violate “trade” rules, which will just fuel public and policymaker skepticism about

From the Seal Products AB report: 5.200. Finally, by suggesting that the European Union must recognize the same level of animal welfare risk in seal hunts as it does in its slaughterhouses and terrestrial wildlife hunts, Canada appears to argue that a responding Member must regulate similar public moral

From the Seal Products AB report: 5.173. Finally, we note that, in US – Shrimp, the Appellate Body stated that it would not "pass upon the question of whether there is an implied jurisdictional limitation in Article XX(g), and if so, the nature or extent of that limitation&

The Appellate Body says the Panel erred in finding that the EU seal products measure is a technical regulation: 5.58. Having reviewed the relevant aspects of the EU Seal Regime, we see only one feature that may suggest that the measure lays down product characteristics, while all others suggest