Differential Treatment and Inequalities under the Sustainable Development Goals: Beyond Preferential Market Access

Reducing inequality in its multiple dimensions is key to sustainability. Under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, one way to meet the goal of narrowing gaps between and within countries is by implementing the special and differential treatment (SDT) principle. The most concrete and well-established implementation of this principle within international trade law is through the Enabling Clause, which authorizes wealthy States to grant, under specified conditions, preferential market access to select developing countries. Yet commentators, consisting primarily of economists and developing-country representatives, argue that tariff preferences are often inadequate to grow the economies of many in the Global South, much less to reduce inequalities. A legal perspective that could bolster this argument remains sparse. This article fills said gap by explaining that while international trade law operationalizes the SDT principle with a heavy emphasis on tariff preferences, the principle is additionally expressed in several other provisions under the other World Trade Organization (WTO) covered agreements: Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade; Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures; Agreement on Trade Facilitation. These under-studied provisions demonstrate crucial but overlooked aspects of the SDT principle, namely, capacity-building and international assistance and cooperation. Therefore, critically analyzing these provisions is important to ascertain whether and how implementation of the SDT principle can reduce inequalities and support sustainable development. This legal analysis contributes in two ways to the broader inquiry about the role of international trade law in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, on a practical level, the article suggests legal bases or sources for additional indicators needed to better measure and monitor progress in reaching the target. Second, the analysis reveals a necessity to revisit and further scrutinize assumptions underlying the legal mechanisms within the trade regime that States and other relevant actors are using to pursue valuable global objectives.