Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement

CHAPTER TWENTY
EXCEPTIONS

Article 20.1: General Exceptions

For the purposes of Chapters Two (Tariff Elimination and Related Matters), Three (Rules of Origin), Four (National Treatment and Market Access for Goods), Five (Customs Procedures), Six (Trade Facilitation), Seven (Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures), Eight (Technical Barriers to Trade), Nine (Electronic Commerce), Fifteen (Conduct of Business) and Seventeen (Transparency), and Article 16.3 (Temporary Entry of Business Persons), Article XX (General Exceptions) of the GATT 1994 is incorporated into and made part of this Agreement with any necessary modifications. The Parties understand that the measures referred to in Article XX(b) of the GATT 1994 include environmental measures necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health. The Parties further understand that Article XX(g) of the GATT 1994 applies to measures relating to the conservation of living and non-living exhaustible natural resources.

Article 20.2: National Security

This Agreement does not:

• (a) require a Party to furnish, or allow access to, any information if that Party determines that the disclosure of the information would be contrary to its essential security interests;
• (b) prevent a Party from taking any action that it considers necessary to protect its essential security interests:
  • (i) relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war, and to traffic and transactions in other goods, materials, services, and technology undertaken directly or indirectly for the purposes of supplying a military or other security establishment;
  • (ii) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations; or
  • (iii) relating to the implementation of a national policy or international agreement respecting the non-proliferation of biological, chemical, nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices; or
• (c) prevent a Party from taking any action in order to carry out its international obligations for the purposes of maintaining international peace and security.

Article 20.3: Taxation

1. This Agreement does not apply to taxation measures.

2. Notwithstanding paragraph 1:

• (a) Article 4.1 (National Treatment) and the other provisions of this Agreement necessary to give effect to that Article shall apply to a taxation measure to the same extent as does Article III of the GATT 1994; and
• (b) Article 4.7 (Export Taxes) shall apply to a taxation measure.

3. This Agreement does not affect the rights and obligations of a Party under a tax convention. In the event of inconsistency between this Agreement and a tax convention, the tax convention prevails to the extent of the inconsistency.

Article 20.4: Balance of Payments

The rights and obligations of the Parties relating to balance of payments are governed by the Understanding on the Balance-of-Payments Provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994, contained in Annex 1A of the WTO Agreement.

Article 20.5: Cultural Industries

Measures affecting cultural industries are exempt from the provisions of this Agreement, except as specifically provided in Article 2.1 (Tariff Elimination).

Article 20.6: WTO Waivers

1. To the extent that there are overlapping rights and obligations in this Agreement and the WTO Agreement, any measure adopted by a Party in conformity with a waiver decision adopted by the WTO pursuant to paragraph 3 of Article IX (Decision-Making) of the WTO Agreement, is deemed to be also in conformity with this Agreement.

2. Without derogating from paragraph 1, in the event that a Party considers that a measure adopted by the other Party in conformity with a waiver decision of the WTO affects the trade between the Parties, that Party may request holding discussions with the other Party with a view to finding an appropriate solution.

Article 20.7: Disclosure of Information

This Agreement does not require a Party to furnish, or allow access to information the disclosure of which would be contrary to the law of that Party, including law protecting the deliberative and policy-making processes of the executive branch of government, or that would impede law enforcement or otherwise be contrary to public interest, or which would prejudice the legitimate commercial interests of particular enterprises.

Article 20.8: Definitions

For the purposes of this Chapter:

cultural industries means persons engaged in any of the following activities:

• (a) the publication, distribution, or sale of books, magazines, periodicals or newspapers in print or machine readable form, but not including the sole activity of printing or typesetting any of the foregoing;
• (b) the production, distribution, sale or exhibition of film or video recordings;
• (c) the production, distribution, sale or exhibition of audio or video music recordings;
• (d) the publication, distribution or sale of music in print or machine readable form; or
• (e) radio communications in which the transmissions are intended for direct reception by the general public, radio, television and cable broadcasting undertakings and satellite programming and broadcast network services;

tax convention means a convention for the avoidance of double taxation or other international taxation agreement or arrangement;

taxation measures does not include:

• (a) a “customs duty” as defined in Article 2.4 (Definitions); or
• (b) a measure listed in exceptions (b) and (c) to that definition