ABSTRACT
Among the trilogy of trade remedy regimes – antidumping, countervailing duty and safeguard actions – antidumping actions are by far the remedy of choice. 1 As of July 2006, there were 1,875 antidumping orders in force around the world. 2 Under Article XVIII:5 of the GATT, a WTO Member must notify the Committee of ‘any changes in its laws and regulations relevant to this Agreement and in the administration of such laws and regulations’. Members and Observers must also notify the Committee of new or existing laws or regulations, or the lack thereof. 3 Between 1995 and 2008, there were 3,427 antidumping initiations reported to the Committee. 4 Currently more than 40 members of the WTO are active users of antidumping actions including many developing countries. India followed by the USA are now the leading initiators of antidumping proceedings over the period 1995-2006 (a total of 2,938 initiations by all countries).This differs considerably both in terms of percentage distribution and countries involved from the period July 1980 to June 1988, when the actions of the USA, Australia, Canada and the EU accounted for 97.5 % of all actions. The more recent statistics suggest a trend towards greater initiation by developing countries of antidumping actions. 5 Argentina, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey are among the most frequent worldwide users of antidumping, with annual caseloads in the same order of magnitudes, and sometimes higher, than the EU and the USA. 6 However, although developing and industrial countries’ usage of antidumping appear to be comparable, there is a marked difference between the number of measures imposed by developing countries and industrial countries, once adjusted for trade size. In developing countries, antidumping measures per billion US dollars of goods imported is much higher, as is the number of tariff lines covered by antidumping measures. 7
In antidumping proceedings, the following substantive issues are central:
1 Whether the foreign exporter is engaged in ‘dumping’ goods into the importing country’s market. Determining whether dumping is occurring and what the margin of dumping is entails comparing a foreign fi rm’s export prices in the importing country’s market with either prices charged by the exporter in its home market in the ordinary course of trade (normal value) or, where insuffi - cient transactions exist in the home country to yield a reliable set of home market prices, the exporter’s average total costs including overheads and a reasonable margin of profi t.
