ABSTRACT
Among the trilogy of trade remedy regimes-countervailing duty, safeguard and antidumping actions-antidumping actions are by far the remedy of choice. By the end of 1989, twenty-eight countries had adopted antidumping laws.1 Nearly 1,200 actions were initiated between July 1980 and June 1988.2 Four countries’ actions accounted for 97.5% of all actions brought: 30% were brought by producers in the United States; 27% were brought in Australia; 22% in Canada; and 19% in the European Union. The targets of these actions are more diverse. The EU was the largest single target, defending 27% of the actions, while Canada, the USA and Australia in total were targeted in fewer than 14% of the actions. The second most targeted group of countries were the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), representing 18% of the defenders. The actions against the NICs were most often initiated by the USA and Australia, who, along with the EU, also initiated 106 actions against Japan. The EU’s main targets were the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, who defended 15% of the world’s actions. Overall, western industrialized countries accounted for 58% of the targets and developing countries (other than NICs) only 9%. Finally, of the actions initiated by the major users, the success rate ranged from 44% for Australia to 71 % for the EU. More recent GATT data suggest some interesting new trends, with Brazil and Mexico joining the list of major users of antidumping laws.3
