GATT협정 제XX조상의 ‘필요성’ 요건에 대한 검토

The protection and promotion of societal values, such as public health, the environment, national security, etc., are essential tasks for state governments. In most instances, trade liberalization and cheaper products and services facilitate the protection and promotion of these values. Unfortunately, however, due to its domestic political pressure, a state government may have to adopt measures that constitute barriers to trade in order to protect and promote such values which are, apparently, against the rules established under the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO provides exceptions that clearly allow member states to give priority to certain ‘societal values’ over ‘trade liberalization’ in order to strike the balance between the two. Article XX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT), which is the part of the WTO Agreement, enumerates a number of those values that could be justified as exceptions. The notable feature of this provision is that, the measure concerned must be ‘necessary’ to protect public moral and public health, and to secure compliance with laws or regulations. This is different from other exceptions, such as the acquisition or distribution of products in general or local short supply and the conservation of natural resources which require the ‘essentiality’ or the ‘relation’, respectively, of the measure concerned with the societal values pursued. This paper, therefore, discusses about such differences, and on how they have been interpreted by the WTO dispute settlement panels and the Appellate Body.