General Exceptions:

A country may stop import of a product from a particular country  under certain conditions  covered by the general exceptions (Article XX of GATT 1994). For example, a country may restrain import for the reason of protection of public morals (e.g., indecent books and magazines), protection of life and health of human beings, animals and plants (e.g., injurious food articles or those with improper packaging), protection of environment (e.g.,  relating to articles that may pollute water or air while in use or during disposal and  relating to the preservation of exhaustible natural resources).

The most frequently used provisions are those for protection of life and health and for other environmental reasons. The provisions of this article are further elaborated,  clarified and  supplemented  by  the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures.

The agreements on TBT and  SPS stipulate the formulation of  international standards and give pre-eminence to them. If  a country formulates its own standards or SPS measures, it has to justify that these are not in the nature of unnecessary obstacles to  international trade. Also  it has  to  follow  elaborate procedures for prior notification of  the standards, for opportunities to others to make comments and for consideration of these comments.

The measures explained above are at the core of  the problem of environmental protection.  But  the measures have  been  taken by  the major developed countries  rather frequently  and with less  rigour, giving rise  to the apprehension that  these  have  been  taken for protectionist reasons rather  than for environmental reasons. As was mentioned  in the previous Unit, such measures often act as non-tariff barriers (NTBs).