The WTO has a web page (HERE) setting out the main principles of the world's trading system. Chris Grayling, the transport minister said recently on national TV that the British government will not check trucks at Dover, and I assume elsewhere too, whatever happens in the forthcoming negotiations. He should read the WTO principles. They may have something to say about his plan.
The Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rule is apparently so important that it's the first article of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which governs trade in goods. The WTO website explains it thus:
Most-favoured-nation (MFN): treating other people equally Under the WTO agreements, countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. Grant someone a special favour (such as a lower customs duty rate for one of their products) and you have to do the same for all other WTO members.
This principle is known as most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment. It is so important that it is the first article of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which governs trade in goods. MFN is also a priority in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (Article 2) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (Article 4), although in each agreement the principle is handled slightly differently. Together, those three agreements cover all three main areas of trade handled by the WTO.
Some exceptions are allowed. For example, countries can set up a free trade agreement that applies only to goods traded within the group — discriminating against goods from outside. Or they can give developing countries special access to their markets. Or a country can raise barriers against products that are considered to be traded unfairly from specific countries. And in services, countries are allowed, in limited circumstances, to discriminate. But the agreements only permit these exceptions under strict conditions. In general, MFN means that every time a country lowers a trade barrier or opens up a market, it has to do so for the same goods or services from all its trading partners — whether rich or poor, weak or strong.
Unless we enter into a free trade agreement with the EU we will be obliged either to carry out checks on vehicles coming into the UK through Dover, or throw open our borders to every country in the world. There is no other option under the MFN principle.
