Adjudicating Security Exceptions in WTO Law: Methodical and Procedural Preliminaries

As WTO members increasingly invoke security exceptions and the first panel report insofar was issued in Russia – Traffic in Transit, the methodical and procedural preliminaries of their adjudication must be reassessed. The preliminaries pertain to justiciability and to the proper interpretive approach for their vague terms that seemingly imply considerable discretion to WTO members, all the more as general exceptions are subject to expansive interpretation. Reading security exceptions expansively appears not viable as they miss the usual safeguard against abuse (i.e. the chapeau of Articles XX GATT/XIV GATS). This lack of safeguards rather suggests caution in conceptualising them expansively, as do the systemic consequences of recent attempts to re-politicize security exceptions which run the risk of nullifying the concept of multilateral trade regulation altogether. Furthermore, the appropriate standards of review and proof must be explored which have to strike a balance between control and deference in national security.