The Legal Relationship between Special Safeguard Measures on Agricultural Products and General Safeguard Measures

The article addresses the question of whether a World Trade Organization (WTO) Member is permitted to simultaneously apply a special safeguard measure under Article 5 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AGA) and a general safeguard measure under Article XIX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 and the WTO Agreement on Safeguards on the same agricultural product. The author argues that such simultaneous application is possible as a matter of law and proposes that the text of Article 5.8 be amended in order to reflect this. That said, the author also acknowledges that in practice it would be difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate that the conditions for the simultaneous application of these two measures on the same agricultural product are met.