Biret International SA v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2003-09-30
51. According to settled case-law (see,  inter alia ,  Atlanta  v  European Community , paragraph 65), non-contractual liability on the part of the Community under the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty is subject to a number of conditions relating to the illegality of the conduct alleged against the Community institutions, actual damage and the existence of a causal link between the conduct of the institution and the damage complained of.
52. As the Court of First Instance observed in paragraph 61 of the contested judgment, given their nature and structure, the WTO agreements are not in principle among the rules in the light of which the Court is to review the legality of measures adopted by the Community institutions (see  Portugal  v  Council , paragraph 47; the order in  OGT Fruchthandelsgesellschaft , paragraph 24; and the judgments in  Omega Air and Others , paragraph 93, and Case C-76/00 P  Petrotub  and  Republica  v  Council  [2003] ECR I-79, paragraph 53).
53. It is only where the Community has intended to implement a particular obligation assumed in the context of the WTO, or where the Community measure refers expressly to the precise provisions of the WTO agreements, that it is for the Court to review the legality of the Community measure in question in the light of the WTO rules (see, as regards GATT 1947,  Fediol  v  Commission , paragraphs 19 to 22, and  Nakajima  v  Council , paragraph 31, and, as regards the WTO agreements,  Portugal  v  Council , paragraph 49).
59. Furthermore, the judgment in  Atlanta  v  European Community , to which the Court of First Instance also referred, in paragraph 67 of the contested judgment, is irrelevant in this connection. In paragraph 19 of the judgment in  Atlanta  v  European Community  the Court of Justice found that the DSB decision, taken after the appeal had been brought and which establishes the incompatibility of the Community measure in question with WTO law, was inescapably and directly linked to the plea of infringement of the provisions of GATT, which had been raised by the appellant before the Court of First Instance but had not been repeated by it in its pleas on appeal. Consequently, the Court of Justice rejected as inadmissible, on account of the late stage at which it had been invoked, the plea based on the DSB ' s decision, raised before the Court of Justice for the first time in the reply, and the Court did not examine the substance of the plea.
60. However, the errors of law thus made by the Court of First Instance as regards the duty to state reasons and the scope of the judgment in  Atlanta  v  European Community  do not invalidate the contested judgment, if the operative part thereof and in particular the rejection of the plea at first instance concerning the SPS Agreement, appears founded on other legal grounds (see to that effect Case C-367/95 P  Commission  v  Sytraval and Brink ' s France  [1998] ECR I-1719, paragraph 47).
61. It is clear from case-law which is now firmly established that in view of their nature and structure the WTO Agreement and its annexes, in the same way as [the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)] 1947, do not in principle form part of the rules by which the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance review the legality of acts adopted by Community institutions under the first paragraph of Article 173 of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, the first paragraph of Article 230 EC), that individuals cannot rely on them before the courts and that any infringement of them will not give rise to non-contractual liability on the part of the Community (judgments of the Court of Justice in [Case C-149/96]  Portugal  v Council  [[1999] ECR I-8395], Joined Cases C-300/98 and C-392/98  Dior and Others  [2000] ECR I-11307, and Case C-377/98  Netherlands  v  Parliament and Council  [2001] ECR I-7079; order in Case C-307/99  OGT Fruchthandelsgesellschaft  [2001] ECR I-3159; judgments of the Court of First Instance in Case T-18/99  Cordis  v  Commission  [2001] ECR II-913,[Case T-30/99]  Bocchi Food Trade International  v  Commission  [[2001] ECR II-943], Case T-52/99  T. Port  v  Commission  [2001] ECR II-981, Case T-2/99  T. Port  v  Council  [2001] ECR II-2093, and Case T-3/99  Bananatrading  v  Council  [2001] ECR II-2123).
62. The purpose of the WTO agreements is to govern relations between States or regional organisations for economic integration and not to protect individuals. As the Court of Justice stated in  Portugal  v Council , cited above, the agreements are still founded on the principle of negotiations with a view to entering into reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements and thus differ from the agreements concluded between the Community and non-member countries whereby the obligations are not necessarily reciprocal. To have the task of ensuring that Community law is in conformity with those rules fall directly to the Community judicature would be to deprive the legislative or executive bodies of the Community of the discretion enjoyed by similar bodies of the Community ' s trading partners.