The Geopolitics of Disputes at the WTO : Russia, National Security and Emergency in International Relations

In April 2019, the WTO DSB Panel handed Russia a landmark victory against Ukraine regarding traffic in transit for goods. The WTO’s decision arose from a complaint by Ukraine in September 2016 regarding measures imposed by Russia concerning the traffic of goods in transit from Ukraine to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan – and other former Soviet Republics. The decision is important for a number of reasons, but for the purposes of this article, there are two points I want to discuss. First, the notion of an emergency in international relations and, secondly, the concept of national security as it relates to the security exceptions of the GATT 1994 Agreement. The invocation of the security exceptions in a trade dispute at the WTO is in itself a new development and, as such, will pose some challenges for the future of the international liberal trade order. Yet, at the same time, the ruling also raise the question as to whether nations that have ongoing conflicts should trade on the same terms as the rest of the world where no conflicts are present or, what are the conditions that give rise for an exemption of the trading rules of the WTO