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Some reflections on @afneil ‘s brilliant interview of soon PM Johnson and Art. XXIV GATT. Many of my fellow trade lawyers have written on the substance and I have too, but it’s time to look at the Art. XXIV debate in total and identify what’s going wrong. (Thread)
@afneil Art. XXIV made its appearance in the Brexit debate as the “no deal solution”. Originally the claim seemed to be that this was a great unilateral solution, that would magically leave things as they are or without tariffs for ten years, while a deal is negotiated.
@afneil Trade lawyers were quick to point out that Art. XXIV needs agreement. So the claim morphed to an “interim agreement” which is in the wording - but an interim agreement still needs some substance, which is where XXIV:5 c comes in.
@afneil But the discourse quickly morphed again. Now it was conceded that agreement was needed - but it was no longer an interim agreement, but a full FTA that appeared to be the solution. A full FTA could, after all “be just one page”.
@afneil At first sight one might think “oh - this is quite as things should be: proposals are made, experts say ‘doesn’t work like this’, proposals are improved, now there’s one that is technically correct, case solved. Brilliant”. But that’s wrong. And not an adequate description.
@afneil Because while the debate morphed, the purpose of the debate remained the same: this is supposedly the solution for no deal. And now look at the outcome of the technical debate. The outcome literally is: WTO law allows free trade agreements. When was that in doubt?
@afneil But the debate is even worse: at every step academic arguments were selectively chosen to argue “no deal will work brilliantly”, although none of the arguments actually supported that.
@afneil In reality, the participants to this debate are discussing on two fundamentally different levels: the experts care about the deep technical aspects. The politicians are committed to a policy position and are now looking for arguments in support. They are talking past each other.
@afneil ...because effectively what happened was that the selective use of technical arguments ran into a wall. The wall that the technicians now the technical aspects, the politicians usually don’t. It won’t matter in the end, but maybe it improves discourse? Let’s see...
@afneil know. Of course. How I hate typos in threads. Particularly if I make them.
