GATT, WTO and the regulation of international trade in textiles

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the existing legal system. It deals with the radical changes that have taken place in the textile sector which, from 1995 onwards, is part of the World Trade Organization. The move towards an international treaty apparently divorced from General Agreement on Tariffs and trade (GATT) rules but one which is conceptualized as a system of exceptions from it presents a serious problem of coherence when the structure is analysed from a legal viewpoint. Given that all international treaties tend to include some system of exceptions aimed at correcting those malfunctions which emerge from the irregular actions of those party to it, in the case of GATT, these exceptions turn out to be even more necessary. The grey area agreements of the Thirties were the precedent of those applied from the Eighties onwards in other areas of trad