Foreign Policy Review (Rejected)

[Dereich]

Seeing as we're still a part of the WTO, most of these economic sanctions being discussed are pretty clearly illegal and threaten huge legal retaliatory sanctions from all corners of the globe. All member states are required to extend most favored nation status to all other members, with that if we extend privileges to one nation they must be extended to all. Conversely, we can only restrict trade to one member nation if we restrict trade to all member nations. There ARE some circumstances where we have the ability to impose sanctions and not face retaliation by all member states, the only ones which might apply are when sanctions are:

1. necessary to protect public morals;
2. necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;
3. necessary to secure compliance with laws or regulations which are not inconsistent with the provisions of this Agreement, including those relating to customs enforcement, the enforcement of monopolies operated under paragraph 4 of Article II and Article XVII, the protection of patents, trade marks and copyrights, and the prevention of deceptive practices;

But for many of the places that sanctions are being proposed using any of these as a justification would be shaky at best and would end in tons of WTO cases brought against us. Something should be done to either remove or change the nature of the sanctions or to leave the WTO.