Friday, Nov 6, 2009    Text size: 

While such a challenge may present issues over sovereignty as member states are able to cite morality as valid grounds for restricting trade, such as barring access to child pornography websites or other culturally offensive materials, the WTO may put limits on censorship and require countries to use selective filtering.

The study was compiled by the European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE), which according to the group is "an independent and non-profit policy research think tank dedicated to trade policy and other international economic policy issues of importance to Europe."

"Censorship is the most important non-tariff barrier to the provision of online services, and a case might clarify the circumstances in which different forms of censorship are WTO-consistent," said the study's authors, Brian Hindley and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama. "Many WTO member states are legally obliged to permit an unrestricted supply of cross-border Internet services."

According to the report, the Internet has been censored by many countries for both moral and political reasons and this can negatively impact businesses. While the WTO allows member states to take these measures, they must be targeted and not disproportionately interfere with international trade.

"There is a good chance that a panel might rule that permanent blocks on search engines, photo-sharing applications and other services are inconsistent with (WTO services) provisions, even given morals and security exceptions," the report concluded.