WTO Appellate Body, Peru – Additional Duty on Imports of Certain Agriculture Products, WT/DS457/AB/R, 20 July 2015

The Peru – Agriculture Products case presents an issue of first impression for the relationship between Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its substantive rules. While the provisions of the covered agreements cited by the complainant, Guatemala, were not unique to a WTO dispute, this case raised the puzzling spectre of one RTA member complaining against the other that a provision in their own Free Trade Agreement (FTA) violates the WTO. This poses the question whether, and if so under what allowable conditions, regional trade agreement members may modify (violate) WTO rights and obligations as between them only (inter se) in their trade treaty relations.
This note examines three of the issues raised on the appeal that affect the RTA / WTO relationship.