Abstract
With the development of international society, public morals attract increasing addition from states Neverdieless, the “public morals” exception clause in Article XX (a) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (hereinafter ‘GATT’) is hardly invoked by state parties as a distinct basis for trade restrictive measures. The EC-Seal Product dispute is die first case that WTO Dispute Settlement Body (hereinafter ‘DSB’> have to consider dus issue. This article will analyse what kmd of public morals can be justified when implementing trade restrictive measures. It proposes that human rights standard is a significant moral concern and an integration may be made between human rights law- and trade law. The article also addressed the question about what procedures should be followed to apply Article XX (a’ to avoid it to be abused. It comes to die conclusion that Article XX (A) has an intrinsic importance to stnke a balance between trade liberalisation and state sovereignty, for which it must be reserved in the GATT.