眾律國際法律事務所

Antidumping International Agreements: WTO Antidumping agreement.

Although trade liberalization is the main goal of trade policy, and although antidumping rules are generally considered as restrictive to trade, some regulations still grant Governments power to impose anti-dumping measures when conditions are met. According to the Word Trade Organization (WTO), dumping is “a situation of international price discrimination, where the price of a product when sold in the importing country is less than the price of that product in the market of exporting country”. If it injures the domestic producers in the importing country, authorities may impose antidumping duties to offset the effects of the dumpling, since it is an unfair trade practice which keeps competitors out of a particular market.

International antidumping rules are provided by:

1. Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT 1947).
2. Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade 1994 (Antidumping Agreement under the WTO), which was concluded in 1994 as a result of the Uruguay Round.

The WTO Agreement is the successor to the GATT Agreement, but provisions of Article VI are not replaced but it: Article VI is implemented and interpreted by the WTO Agreement. Since 1947 GATT, the rules of international trading system have authorized countries to establish national antidumping statutes and implement antidumping trade restrictions. Under the agreement, a national government shall undertake an investigation and consider substantial economic evidence before it can impose definitive antidumping measures that restricts imports. The investigating authority is instructed to consider different factors when making the decision, but the most important among them are whether two important legal criteria have been met: that a domestic industry suffers material injury, and that this injury is the result of dumped imports.

Taiwan filed an application for a GATT membership status in January 1990. In 1995, when the WTO was established, the application was transformed into the accession application for the WTO membership. Taiwan became the 144^th member of the WTO in 2002.

Basic principles of the Antidumping agreement

The Agreement ensures that WTO members will not apply antidumping measures arbitrarily. Antidumping measures are unilateral remedies that the government of the importing country may apply after a throughout investigation has determined that the product is, in fact, being dumped, and that sales of the dumped product are causing material injury to a domestic industry that produces a like product.

WTO members can impose antidumping measures only if, after investigation in accordance with the Agreement, a determination meets the following requirements:

1. A dumping is occurring;
2. The domestic industry producing the like product in the importing country is suffering material injury.
3. There is a casual link between a) and b).

Reference:

WTO: https://www.wto.org/index.htm

Members of the WTO Agreement (162):

https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org6_e.htm

Taipei’s participation in the WTO:

https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/chinese_taipei_e.htm