ABSTRACT
It has recently been debated whether international trade law should allow a degree of protectionism for developing countries to support their infant domestic industries for economic development or whether it should instead promote open trade as the current WTO regime does, as the latter ensures economic welfare and efficiency. Despite popular belief, these two presumably opposing policies are not in fact mutually exclusive, and the successful developing countries in East Asia adopted open trade policies, on the one hand, to expand exports and increase imports essential for their export industries, such as raw materials and machinery, and protectionism on the other to curtail imports, particularly consumer goods, that would compete with products from their infant domestic industries. There has been debate regarding the effectiveness of supporting infant industries for economic development. Notwithstanding the debate, most of the countries that have achieved successful economic development protected domestic industries from foreign competition in one way or another during the periods of their own economic development. WTO legal disciplines allow certain regulatory exceptions to protect domestic industries, although the regulatory treatment does not seem to be sufficient to facilitate the economic development of developing countries. This chapter examines the relevant issues.
