The Export Restraints Policy: The Reverse Protectionism on the International Trade

Currently, several lawsuits have been established into the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement body related with the use of some trade policies where countries block their exports abroad as a sort of protectionism which is not entirely regulated by the multilateral trading system. Therefore, this scenario is pushing states to sign particular commitments on the accession protocol of the WTO in order to be new members, besides to develop parallels legal frameworks through Free Trade Agreements (FTA) that undermine the current legal system. All these differences usually cite articles from the General Agreement and Tariffs on Trade (GATT) and others legal texts, therefore, the multilateral trading system requires to perform a new round of negotiations for adjusting some obsoletes rules, especially when considering the increase of the "reverse protectionism" due to the depletion of natural resources which leads to new challenges for international relations.