Do Different Treaty Purposes Matter for Treaty Interpretation?: The Elimination of Discriminatory Internal Taxes in EC and WTO Law

The comparison made in this contribution between Article III:2 GATT and Article 90 EC indicates that different treaty purposes need not matter that much, if the text and purpose of individual provisions are similar. Indeed, the different objectives and purposes of the GATT and the EC have not led to noticeably different interpretations of the similarly worded obligations on WTO Members and EC Member States concerning the elimination of discriminatory internal taxes in Article III:2 GATT and Article 90 EC. This finding is in line with Article 31 (1) of the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties, which puts emphasis on the relevance of the wording of treaty provisions. The European Court of Justice (ECJ), however, pays more attention to the object and purpose of the EC Treaty when interpreting a provision of that treaty. Would one have followed the line of reasoning of the ECJ, one might therefore have expected another conclusion.