ABSTRACT
Since the 1970's, the welfare-increasing effects of the successful liberalization of tariffs and non-tariff barriers within General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have been increasingly undermined by recourse to "grey area trade restrictions" such as private or public unilateral "voluntary export restraints" (VER) or bilateral "voluntary restraint agreements" (VRA). VERs and VRAs usually involve minimum price requirements and/or quantitative restrictions which, if instituted or maintained by a GATT contracting party vis-a-vis another GATT contracting party, are regularly inconsistent with Article XI:1. Many governmental VERs and VRAs serve as a substitute for alternative safeguard measures in the importing country pursuant to GAIT Article XIX or, as a means to circumvent the procedural and substantive legal conditions for safeguard measures admissible under Article XIX. The large numbers of governmental VERs and VRAs Introduced in the context of antidumping or countervailing duty proceedings are likely to impair the rights and competitive benefits accruing to third GATT contracting parties under the General Agreement.
