Enabling clause

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In 1979, as part of the Tokyo Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the enabling clause was adopted in order to permit trading preferences targeted at developing and least developed countries which would otherwise violate Article I of the GATT. Paragraph 2(a) provides a legal basis for extending the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) beyond the original 10 years. In practice it gave a permanent validity to the GSP. The enabling clause permits developed countries to discriminate between different categories of trading partners (in particular, between developed, developing and least developed countries) which would otherwise violate Article I of the GATT which stipulates that no GATT contracting party must be treated worse than any other (this is known as most favoured nation treatment). In effect, this allows developed countries to give preferential treatment to poorer countries, particularly to least developed countries. Paragraph 2(c) permits developing countries to enter into preferential trade agreements which do not meet the strict criteria laid out in GATT Article XXIV for regional free-trade agreements. It allows developing countries to enter into agreements which may be non-reciprocal, or cover a very limited range of products (which would otherwise contravene the GATT).

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."

The Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, is a preferential tariff system which provides tarriff reduction on various products. The concept of gsp is very different from the concept of mfn .MFN status provides equal treeatment in the case of tarriff being imposed by a nation but in case of gsp differential tarriff could be imposed by a nation on various country whether it is a developed country or a developing country. Both the rules comes under the purview of wto.

In international economic relations and international politics, "most favoured nation" (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must nominally receive equal trade advantages as the "most favoured nation" by the country granting such treatment. In effect, a country that has been accorded MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status by the promising country. There is a debate in legal circles whether MFN clauses in bilateral investment treaties include only substantive rules or also procedural protections.

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