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  A possible solution for the Irish 'border'?
  
  You described vividly the hurdles that the traffic of people and goods would face if a hard border were to be established between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland as a consequence of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (“The border that isn’t—yet”, July 15th). Yet this does not need to be so.
  
  Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which lays down the rules to be respected by member countries when they establish customs unions or free-trade areas in order that other countries are not discriminated against, contains a little-used provision on “frontier traffic”. It allows members of the World Trade Organisation to deviate from these constraints in respect of “advantages accorded to adjacent countries in order to facilitate frontier traffic”. There is no definition of frontier traffic, so an exemption from customs regulations and duties for the intra-Ireland movement of goods could be covered. This would be a good basis for avoiding a hard border, although checks would be necessary at the harbours in order to stop goods from the other part of the island being further exported to the rest of the UK or the EU respectively.
  
  One can look to a broader precedent. Goods originating from northern Cyprus can enter and freely circulate in the entire EU as Cypriot goods.
  
  PROFESSOR GIORGIO SACERDOTI
  Former member of the appellate body of the WTO

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