The laws applicable to the case include the laws and regulations of the United States and the international laws that were claimed to have been violated. As such, US customs law under which the imported goods and products should pertain to the US standards was one of the laws applied to the case. The EPA regulations were also applied to the case; “The crux of the dispute was that the EPA regulations allowed U.S. and certain foreign refineries to use individual baselines, derived from the particular circumstances of their facilities, while requiring most foreign refineries to apply a much less flexible and often less favorable statutory baseline” (Garrett & Smith, 1999, p. 37).
In this respect, the double standards applied by the US refineries and the market rules to the quality of gasoline imported and the one produced on the territory of the USA violated the international regulations of the WTO. The issue concerned the Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gasoline and the United States was the defendant while the complaints were Venezuela and Brazil.
The political, economic, and environmental issues were all present in the currently reviewed case. The environmental issues of the case were discussed in different studies. For instance, the article by Davis (1998) reflects other cases when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) applied specific acts and regulations only when it was beneficial for it in some way. Krishnamoorthy (2005) also emphasizes the environmental and economic consequences related to this case. At the same time, the issue of alternative energy was also regarded; Pimentel (2003) and Hill et al. (2006) focus on alternative to use instead gasoline with regard to different types of fuel.
The economic context of the case suggests even more vigorous dispute over the implied motivation of the United States regulations applied to the Brazilian and Venezuelan gasoline imported to the US market and the limitations on this trade. The case of the US gasoline import regulations and discrimination of the Brazilian and Venezuelan gasoline was also considered in the study edited by Griller (2003, pp. 21-23) with regard to economic perspective. As reported by Weiss, Jackson and Bernasconi-Osterwalder (2008), “Foreign gasoline not complying with the statutory baseline could not be sold in the United States ‘whereas gasoline with these same qualifications produced in a U.S. refinery could be freely sold on the U.S. market’.” (p. 202). This means that not only economic but also political issues mattered for solving this case.
No matter how corrupt the bargain between the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US based refineries is, the gasoline demand is still large in the United States. German (2005) insist of on the fact that the demand of the United States for gasoline cannot be satisfied with the domestic market products only and they have to import from Brazil and Venezuela (p. 501). Beaubouef (2007) and Lampeer (2006) dwell on the gasoline consumption in the USA and the great demand of the US for petroleum.
The cases related to this one include EC – Computers, Beef Hormones, US – Shrimp, and others that include the fact of violation of international laws and regulations. However, the appellate body found no violation in the case of EC – Computers and reversed it.
Reference List
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Davis, J. M., 1998. Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl: health risk uncertainties and research directions. In: G. E. R. Hook, & G. W. Lucier, eds. 2000. Reviews in environmental health (1998): toxicological defense mechanics. Darby, PA: DIANE Publishing, pp. 191-201.
Garrett, G., & Smith, J. M., 1999. The politics of WTO dispute settlement. Web.
Geman, H., 2005. Commodities and commodity derivatives: modelling and pricing for agricultural, metals, and energy. London: John Wiley and Sons.
Griller, S. ed., 2003. International economic governance and non-economic concerns: new challenges for the international legal order. New York: Springer.
Hill, J. et al., 2006. Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels. PNAS, 103 (30), pp. 11206–11210.
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