LatinNews Daily - 6 December 2024

*An arbitration panel at the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled in favour of Costa Rica in relation to a trade dispute with Panama. The dispute is over measures imposed by Panama in 2019 and 2020 that restrict or prohibit the import of products such as strawberries, dairy products, meat products, pineapples, and bananas from Costa Rica. The WTO panel ruling follows the formal request for consultations announced in January 2021 by Costa Rica which argues that Panama’s measures violate multiple obligations under the WTO’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1994). In its ruling on 5 December, the WTO found that in relation to various of its prohibitions imposed, Panama had failed to demonstrate that the measure was adopted in a situation where “relevant scientific evidence was insufficient to conduct a risk assessment”, among other things.