As parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT 1994), World Trade Organization (WTO) Members must under Article I:1 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) grant most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment "immediately and unconditionally" to like products of other Members with respect to customs duties and import charges, internal taxes and regulations, and other trade-related matters. Thus, whenever a WTO Member accords a benefit or advantage to a product of one country, whether it is a WTO Member or not, the Member must accord the same benefit or advantage to the like product of all other WTO Members. Tariff preference programs for developing countries, however, are facially inconsistent with MFN obligations. Nevertheless, because preference programs have been viewed as vehicles of trade liberalization and economic development for developing countries, GATT Parties have accommodated them in a series of joint actions. In 1965, the GATT Parties added Part IV (Arts. XXXVI-XXXVIII) to the General Agreement . This amendment recognizes the special economic needs of developing countries and asserts the principle of nonreciprocity. Under this principle, developed countries forgo the receipt of reciprocal benefits for their negotiated commitments to reduce or eliminate tariffs and restrictions on the trade of less developed contracting parties. Because of the conflict with MFN obligations, GATT Parties in 1971 adopted a waiver of Article I for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) to allow developed contracting parties to accord more favorable tariff treatment to the products of developing countries for 10 years. The waiver describes the GSP as a "system of generalized, nonreciprocal and nondiscriminatory preferences beneficial to the developing countries." At the end of the GATT Tokyo Round in 1979, developing countries secured adoption of the Enabling Clause, a permanent deviation from MFN agreed to by the GATT Contracting Parties. The Enabling Clause states that notwithstanding GATT Article I, "contracting parties may accord differential and more favorable treatment to developing countries, without according such treatment to other contracting parties" and applies this exception to (1) preferential tariff treatment in accordance with the GSP; (2) multilateral nontariff preferences negotiated under GATT auspices; (3) multilateral arrangements among less developed countries; and (4) special treatment of the least-developed countries "in the context of any general or specific measures in favour of developing countries." The Enabling Clause has since been incorporated into the GATT 1994. In 1999, the WTO General Council adopted a decision, captioned "Preferential Tariff Treatment for Least-Developed Countries," which waived GATT Article I:1 until June 30, 2009, "to the extent necessary to allow developing country Members to provide preferential tariff treatment to products of least-developed countries (LDCs), designated as such by the United Nations, without being required to extend the same tariff rates to like products of any other Member." Along with setting out various standards and notification and procedural requirements, the waiver, at paragraph 6, provides that it "does not affect in any way and is without prejudice to rights of Members in their actions pursuant to" the Enabling Clause. The waiver was recently extended until June 30, 2019. WTO Members maintaining preference programs or preferential trade agreements that fall outside the scope of the Enabling Clause or particular GATT articles may seek waivers of Article I:1 and other GATT obligations under Article IX:3 of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO Agreement). Article IX:3 permits WTO Members as a whole to waive obligations imposed on a WTO Member by WTO multilateral agreements, including the GATT. A request for a GATT waiver must first be submitted by the requesting Member to the WTO Council for Trade in Goods, which, after considering the request, reports to the WTO General Council. The waiver becomes effective after the General Council agrees to the proposal. One program that fell outside the scope of the Enabling Clause was the European Union (EU) Lomé IV Convention, a preferential, nonreciprocal trade arrangement between the European Economic Community (EEC) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The Convention extended beneficial tariff and quota treatment to ACP imports as well as development assistance to ACP countries. The EU argued that it could deviate from Article I:1 MFN requirements for nonreciprocal free trade with developing countries under GATT Part IV, as well as Article XXIV, which provides an MFN exception for customs unions and free trade areas meeting specified conditions. GATT panels concluded in unadopted 1993 and 1994 reports that such a deviation was not justified under either provision. Regarding the Article XXIV claim, the 1994 report concluded that because Lomé IV involved non-GATT Parties, the Article did not cover the agreement and thus could not be used to justify the inconsistency with Article I of trade preferences for bananas imported from ACP countries. The European Union subsequently obtained a temporary waiver of GATT Article I:1 for the Lomé agreement; a waiver was later granted for the successor ACP-EC Partnership Agreement (Cotonou Agreement) until December 31, 2007. The European Union has since been negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with ACP countries to replace the Cotonou Agreement. Various WTO Members have raised concerns as to whether MFN clauses in the EPAs, under which trade benefits negotiated by ACP countries with third countries would be accorded to the European Union, are consistent with the Enabling Clause. Along with maintaining its long-standing GSP program, the United States administers various regional preferences for which it holds WTO waivers. GATT Article I:1 has been waived for tariff preferences for the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands until December 31, 2016. The United States has also obtained waivers for the following programs: (1) the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), as amended, through December 31, 2014; (2) the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), as amended, through December 31, 2014; and (3) the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), through September 30, 2015. These programs extend duty-free treatment that in some cases is subject to quantitative restrictions, and, thus, the WTO has agreed to waive not only GATT Article I:1 but also GATT Article XIII, paras. 1 and 2, which require nondiscrimination in administering quotas. The United States submitted a waiver request for AGOA, as well as requests for renewals of expired or expiring waivers for the CBERA and ATPA programs, in February 2005. Revised requests were submitted in March 2009, reflecting legislative amendments to the CBERA and ATPA programs. During this period, Brazil, China, India, and Pakistan raised questions on the U.S schemes focused primarily on textile issues, while Paraguay questioned why it had not been included in the ATPA program. The U.S. requests were ultimately approved by the WTO Council on Trade in Goods in March 2009, and by the WTO General Council in May 2009. In European Communities — Conditions for the Granting of Tariff Preferences to Developing Countries , the WTO Appellate Body (AB) explained how developed country WTO members may design preferential-tariff programs within the requirements of the Enabling Clause. The dispute between India and the European Union (EU) stemmed from an EU Regulation which awarded tariff preferences to a closed group of 12 beneficiary countries on the condition that they combat illicit drug production (the Drug Arrangements). India brought the claim alleging that the Drug Arrangements were inconsistent with GATT Article I:1 and unjustified by the Enabling Clause. The initial dispute panel, in a report issued on December 1, 2003, concluded that the EU was in violation of its WTO obligations, with one panelist dissenting on procedural grounds. Addressing the nature of the Enabling Clause and its procedural implications, a two member majority first concluded that the Enabling Clause functions as an exception to the GATT Article I:1 MFN obligation and that, consequently, the burden of proof rests on the party that invokes the Enabling Clause as a defense. The lone dissenter argued that the MFN obligation does not apply to the Enabling Clause and that India did not properly bring the claim under the Enabling Clause. Employing a broad reading of the term "non-discriminatory" in the Enabling Clause's description of the GSP, the panel concluded that developed countries were required to provide "identical tariff preferences" under GSP schemes to "all developing countries without differentiation, except for the implementation of a priori limitations." Applying this standard, the panel then ruled that the Drug Arrangements were inconsistent with GATT Article I:1 and could not be justified under the Enabling Clause. The European Union appealed. The AB report, issued on April 7, 2004, first addressed the relationship between GATT Article I:1 and the Enabling Clause. The AB upheld the panel's findings that the Enabling Clause is an exception to GATT Article I:1 and that the Enabling Clause does not exclude the applicability of Article I:1. The AB explained that the Enabling Clause is to be read together with Article I:1 in the procedural sense, since a challenged measure, such as the Drug Arrangements, is "submitted successively to the test of compatibility with the two provisions." In other words, when the Enabling Clause is implicated, the dispute panel first examines whether a measure is consistent with Article I:1, "as the general rule," and, if it is found not to be so, the panel then examines whether the measure may be justified under the Enabling Clause.