INTRODUCTION

The promotion and protection of public health, consumer safety, the environment, employment, economic development and national security are core tasks of governments. Often, trade liberalisation and the resulting availability of better and cheaper products and services facilitate the promotion and protection of these and other societal values and interests. Through trade, environmentally friendly products or life-saving medicines, that would not be available otherwise, become available to consumers and patients respectively. At a more general level, trade generates the degree of economic activity and economic welfare indispensable for the effective promotion and protection of the societal values and interests referred to above.

In order to protect and promote these societal values and interests, however, governments also frequently adopt legislation or take measures that inadvertently or deliberately constitute barriers to trade. Members are often politically and/or economically ‘compelled’ to adopt legislation or measures which are inconsistent with rules of WTO law and, in particular, with the principles of non-discrimination and the rules on market access discussed in chapters 4 and 5. Trade liberalisation, and its principles of non-discrimination and rules on market access, often conflicts with other important societal values and interests. Therefore, WTO law provides for a set of rules to reconcile trade liberalisation with other societal values and interests. As the Sutherland Report noted: