Our First: Legality of Public Measures to Enhance Consumer Ethnocentrism from the EU and WTO Perspective

Abstract

Post-crisis economy on both sides of the Atlantic faces various protectionist strains. The paper investigates how various public campaigns and rules that boost consumer ethno-centrism, both at the national and EU level, come into line with free trade agreements signed by most of the contemporary states. The paper discusses the consistency of buy domestic campaigns supported by the states with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and European Union (EU) legal principles on free movement of goods. These campaigns, especially when sponsored by public authorities, are in many aspects discriminatory. Furthermore, the promotion of negative stereotypes with respect to foreign goods does not differ very much from discrimination of foreigners. The paper finds that the WTO and the EU have quite similar provisions with respect to non-pecuniary restrictions on the free movement of goods, a form of which are also buy domestic campaigns. These provisions, however, have been interpreted in a very different manner by the EU Court and WTO dispute settlement bodies that leads to important differences in respect of the legality of publicly supported buy domestic campaigns under the respective legal systems.

Keywords

• eu
• world trade organisation
• consumerism
• ethnocentrism