WTO ANTI-DUMPING AGREEMENT

WTO and Anti-Dumping Agreement



WTO and Anti-Dumping Agreement

Introduction

The Antidumping and DSU are the most cited provisions with the WTO regime and are among the most contentious issues within the WTO framework as well as in the dispute settlement of the WTO members. The Anti-Dumping Agreement was a make or break deal during the WTO negotiations and has been a major concern for developed and developing members of the WTO. This study critically analyse the main features of the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement as representing a fair and effective trade remedy mechanism for enhancing competition policy.

This study also discussess that though WTO provides one of the most popular remedy of impositions of sanctions which are not available at any other government represented international forums. But these sanctions do not serve the purpose of trade liberalization and creates a further barrier by impositions of tariffs to induce compliance of the DSB Rulings. In case of Antidumping the remedies prove to be insufficient as the imposition of dumping itself results in trade diversion or have irrecoverable impact on the domestic industry of the exporting country. The research concludes with suggestions for reforms which can be further explored and should be included in the present negotiations of the Doha Round of Trade Negotiations.

Motivation

Why DSU remedies analysis with Antidumping? The basic reason stems from the contentious nature of Anti-dumping itself. It has been frequently raised against the developing countries and these countries always seek to have more coherent rules regarding dumping. On the other hand the developed countries are particularly reluctant to negotiate on the existing Anti-dumping Agreement. Second reason arises from the number of disputes and investigation initiated for alleged dumping. In last year 107 Provisional Anti Dumping Measures were taken by the WTO members in one year and making to total of 1279 measures between 1995 and 2006. Therefore evaluation of DSU remedies with respect to Antidumping laws is one of the major issues for on going negotiations. The upbeat of the WTO success is beyond doubt and in the book WTO at TEN, it was considered as a major development and breakthrough for the multinational trading system. The DSU and Anti-dumping kept haunting the GATT era and the dispute settlement lacking effective remedies to enforce compliance of the GATT proved to be a major concern. Resultantly WTO regime was established during the Uruguay Round of Multilateral trade Negotiations. When one analyze the Dispute Settlement Understanding and Antidumping Agreement, it appears that members have effectively utilized both new agreements but unfortunately the remedial provisions of the WTO have lacked the required force to ensure strict compliance of the WTO Agreements in general and Antidumping in particular. This brings the question to dig into the concept of remedies available for the breach of WTO obligations with the present regime and consider whether these remedies effectively resolve the issue of misuse of Antidumping Agreement.

Overview

This article discusses the remedies available under the WTO (World Trade Organization) agreement and of the Anti-dumping Agreement (ADA) concluded ...