The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 ('GATT 1994') represents one of the most enduring and successful multilateral projects of modern times. Given its central and dominant position in the multilateral trading system, it is interesting that GATT 1994 contains no express definition of the objects that it regulates - 'products' and 'goods'. While this omission may not have raised substantial legal difficulties in the past, rapid changes in technology and the rising use by governments of market instruments to manage resources and the environment have seen the creation of new and unorthodox items of international commerce. The atypical qualities of these items, such as their intangibility or their status as 'regulatory property', raise questions as to whether they fall within the scope of GATT 1994. By testing the legal boundaries of the terms 'products' and 'goods', this article seeks to develop a legal framework for assessing whether, and to what extent, new and unorthodox items of international commerce fall within its scope. It then applies this framework to two examples, carbon units and digital products, concluding that, far from being rigid or limited, GATT 1994 is sufficiently capable of evolving to cover many of these new and unorthodox items.
Journal of World Trade