32The Court of First Instance, at paragraphs 50 to 56 and 60 to 71 of the contested judgment, rejected those two pleas as unfounded. As regards more specifically the alleged breach of the SPS Agreement, the Court held as follows:60 Although under Article 228(7) of the [EC] Treaty [(now, after amendment, Article 300(7) EC)] agreements concluded between the Community and nonmember States are binding on the institutions of the Community and on Member States and, as the Court of Justice held in particular in [Case 181/73] Haegeman [[1974] ECR 449] and [Case 12/86] Demirel [[1987] ECR 3719], the provisions of such agreements form an integral part of the Community legal order, the Court of Justice has repeatedly emphasised that the effects of such agreements in the Community legal order must be determined in the light of the nature and purpose of the agreement in question. Thus, in Case 104/81 Kupferberg [1982] ECR 3641, paragraph 17, the Court held that the effects within the Community of the provisions of an international agreement may not be determined without taking account of the international origin of the provisions in question and that in conformity with the principles of international law the contracting parties are free to agree what effect the provisions of the agreement are to have in their internal legal order (see also Opinion of Advocate General Gulmann in Case C-280/93 Germany v Council [1994] ECR I-4973, at I-4980, paragraph 127). In particular, in Demirel, the Court held at paragraph 14 that a provision in an agreementconcluded by the Community with nonmember countries must be regarded as being directly applicable when, regard being had to its terms and the purpose and nature of the agreement itself, the provision contains a clear and precise obligation which is not subject, as regards its implementation or effects, to the adoption of any subsequent measure. The question whether such a stipulation is unconditional and sufficiently precise to have direct effect must be considered in the context of the agreement of which it forms part (Kupferberg, cited above, paragraph 23).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 nonmember 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.63 According to that judgment (Portugal v Council, paragraph 49) it is only where the Community 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 Community judicature to review the legality of the Community measure in question in the light of the WTO rules (see, as regards GATT 1947, Case 70/87 Fediol v Commission [1989] ECR 1781, paragraphs 19 to 22, and Case C-69/89 Nakajima v Council [1991] ECR I-2069, paragraph 31).64 It is clear that the circumstances of this case clearly do not correspond to either of the two hypotheses set out in the preceding paragraph. Since Directives 81/602 and 88/146 were adopted on 1 January 1995, several years before the entry into force of the SPS Agreement, it is not logically possible for them either to give rise to a specific obligation entered into under that agreement or to refer expressly to some of its provisions.65 In the circumstances, therefore, the applicant cannot rely on an infringement of the SPS Agreement.66 The decision of the DSB of 13 February 1998 referred to above cannot alter that.67 There is an inescapable and direct link between the decision and the plea alleging infringement of the SPS Agreement, and the decision could therefore only be taken into consideration if the Court had found that Agreement to have direct effect in the context of a plea alleging the invalidity of the directives in question (see, with regard to a decision of the DSB finding that certain provisions of Community law were incompatible with GATT 1994, Case C-104/97 P Atlanta v European Community [1999] ECR I-6983, paragraphs 19 and 20).68 The plea alleging infringement of the SPS Agreement must therefore be rejected as unfounded.69 As the applicant has thus failed to establish that the conduct alleged against the defendant institution is unlawful, the action must at any event be dismissed as unfounded and it is unnecessary to consider the other conditions for non-contractual liability on the part of the Community (see, for example, Atlanta v European Community, cited above, paragraph 65).70 In its reply, however, the applicant requests the Court of First Instance, in the alternative, to “develop its case-law” in the direction of a system of no-fault liability for the Community in respect of its normative acts. In support of that request, it relies in particular on the “defence of the rule of law”, the autonomous nature of an action for damages, the general principles common to the laws of the Member States and considerations of natural justice linked to application of the “precautionary principle”.71 That submission, which changes the very basis on which the Community could be held liable, must be regarded as constituting a new plea in law which cannot be introduced in the course of proceedings, as Article 48 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance provides (Atlanta v European Community, cited above, paragraphs 27 to 29).’
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