Anti-dumping, subsidies, safeguards
Antidumping Regional Regimes and the Multilateral Trading System
As of November 2010 more than 300 regional trade agreements (RTAs) were in force. Approximately two-thirds of them had been notified to the WTO. Each of these RTAs had implicitly or explicitly established a regional legal framework for the application of intra-regional and sometimes extra-regional antidumping actions. This study focuses on intra-regional antidumping regimes and has been built around the analysis of antidumping provisions in 192 RTAs. This Working Paper first recalls the main constitutive elements of the multilateral and regional legal frameworks a pre-requisite to consider if these rules and disciplines are competing with or are complementary to multilateral disciplines. Based on an analysis of these 192 RTAs the Paper identifies two Categories of regional antidumping regimes and assesses their relationships with the multilateral rules. Particular attention is paid to antidumping regimes in RTAs which appear to "diverge" from the WTO disciplines. The Paper concludes that most regional antidumping regimes do not fundamentally change the Parties' rights to take antidumping measures as compared with the multilateral regime. There appears to be no evidence that regional antidumping regimes increase RTA partners' rights to take antidumping actions at the intra-RTA level and only a minority of regimes contains disciplines which diverge from multilateral rules though most of those do not result in fundamental changes in the antidumping patterns of the RTA Parties. The Paper notes however that deep integration among a few RTAs has been decisive in bringing about a substantial change in the antidumping patterns of the RTA Parties concerned. It finds that legal consolidation at the regional level of a current practice of not using antidumping as a trade policy tool is restricted to a limited number of Parties. A few others seem to have used RTAs to restrict the possibility of using anti-dumping between RTA partners as compared to multilateral rules. The Paper finally suggests that the proliferation of regional transparency mechanisms related to antidumping may potentially undermine the oversight role of the multilateral trading system if "information diversion" materializes.
Mapping of Safeguard Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements
This study surveys safeguard provisions on trade in goods in 232 regional trade agreements (RTAs) notified to the GATT/WTO up to 31 December 2012. In particular it identifies those RTAs that modify the conditions applicable to the RTA partner (either substantively or procedurally) in the event that a global safeguard is invoked. In the case of bilateral (or intra-RTA safeguards) the study analyses provisions governing injury assessment causation conditions for the invocation of a measure and the types of measures that may be employed. We use the yardstick of GATT Article XIX and the WTO Safeguards Agreement to determine whether the provisions applicable to bilateral safeguard measures are more or less stringent than the corresponding multilateral rules. The study also includes an inventory of infant industry balance of payments and special safeguards applicable to agricultural products found in RTAs. We demonstrate through various examples that safeguard provisions have become more prescriptive in recent years though little homogeneity in their design is found even for a given country. In the case of global safeguards roughly a quarter of RTAs provide for the possible exclusion of the RTA partner subject to certain criteria thus discriminating against non-parties. In the case of bilateral safeguards some RTAs use looser language to define the trigger mechanism to invoke a safeguard and to determine injury standards thus potentially offering greater scope to use such measures. We found wide variety in the types of bilateral safeguard measures that are permitted in RTAs. A number of more recent RTAs tighten the conditions for application of a bilateral safeguard through limiting the duration of the safeguard measure allowing the use of tariff-based measures only and binding the use of the measure to the transition period. Other RTAs specify neither the length of the bilateral safeguard measure nor the conditions for its reapplication thus providing greater scope to impose such measures than in the multilateral context.