WTO report on Qatar-Saudi Arabia’s case is a ‘full victory’ for Kingdom

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) report on the Saudi-Qatar case “100 percent vindicates the Kingdom,” said Daniel Crosby, lawyer, in an interview with Al Arabiya on Tuesday.

“Saudi Arabia was fully justified in taking the measures that it did to protects its own national security and the security of its citizens because of the situation [which] is called an international emergency by the WTO,” Crosby said.

“It’s a full victory. A 100 percent vindication of the Saudi position with respect to national security and I think that the government should be very happy about that result,” Crosby added.

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WTO had issued a report on the case between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

In the WTO’s report, the panel states that Saudi Arabia was within its rights to take measures against Qatar to protect its essential security interests.

The dispute was launched by Doha in October 2018, accusing the Kingdom of blocking Qatari-owned broadcaster beIN and not protecting against piracy of beIN’s content by “beoutQ.”

Crosby also stressed that the WTO report vindicated Saudi Arabia in cutting ties with Qatar.

“This ruling vindicated Saudi Arabia cutting ties. It said that this is totally consistent with WTO rules and based on the facts presented by Saudi Arabia there is an international emergency that does affect Saudi Arabia’s national security interests,” he said.

Saudi Arabia had, along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, cut diplomatic, trade and transport ties with Qatar in 2017, accusing it of supporting terrorism – a charge Doha denies.

The quartet also demanded that Qatar shut down the state-backed Al Jazeera media network, which they said incited terrorism and was a mouthpiece for extremists.