The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are two of the most visible international economic institutions. Consequently, there is a series of complex issues of international law and policy to arise, one of which is: can one and the same country satisfy the membership requirements of both organizations at the same time? There is not any General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 (GATT) provision which exempts petroleum trade from its coverage. Each time the oil price falls below OPEC’s desirable level, the organization could pursue its objectives through either export levies or supply cuts, or a combination of the two. These are measures that could technically be termed as “quantitative restrictions” in the sense of the GATT Article XI:1. “GATT caselaw” also has established that the use of price setting techniques falls under this prohibition (for example, Japan – Trade in Semi-Conductors case). But, Article XI:1 was designed to facilitate the ability of consumers in one country to access the inventories of producers in another, free from quantitative export and import restrictions. Only after a commodity is extracted from its natural state, refined, and stored in a manner suitable for transportation to the market, could that commodity properly be characterized as a "product" subject to an export restriction. It follows that only after an OPEC member has produced oil for consumption could it violate Article XI:1. Oil in its natural state is not covered by the GATT at all. This view prevailed in an analogous issue that arose during the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement 1992 (NAFTA) – which incorporates the principles of GATT Article XI:1 in NAFTA Article 309 (46) – with respect to Canada's concerns about its freshwater resources. Thus, membership requirements of the OPEC and the WTO are not mutually exclusive what allows one and the same country be the Member State of both.