Department of Law

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Browsing Department of Law by Author "Nkomo, Thabang"

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    Preventing regulatory abuse for protectionist ends: an assessment of the Word Trade Organisation's agreement on technical barriers to trade from a developing country's perspective
    (University of Fort Hare, 2015) Nkomo, Thabang
    The reduction of tariffs and quotas has shifted the attention of the international trading community to less noticeable trade barriers. Technical barriers to trade {TBT) measures have significantly been used to protect domestic markets. Although TBT measures were designed for legitimate regulatory purposes, they swiftly became protectionist tools. The TBT issue was brought unto the GA TT agenda during the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The concern was that TBT measures could undermine the market access benefits gained from the tariffs and quota reductions. The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade {TBT Agreement) was adopted by the World Trade Organization {WTO) to prevent the use of TBT measures for protectionist ends. Accordingly, the principal objective of the Agreement is to prevent the use of domestic technical regulations as unjustified technical barriers to trade.