Abstract
Successive tariff reductions during post-Second World War trade negotiations have focused increasing attention on non-tariff barriers in international trade. As one commentator has put it, ‘the lowering of tariffs has, in effect, been like draining a swamp. The lower water level has revealed all the snags and stumps of non-tariff barriers that still have to be cleared away’.1 Prior to the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations, which began in 1964, fears were expressed that further tariff reductions might be partly neutralised by more active application of existing non-tariff barriers, including anti-dumping measures. Accordingly, the negotiating brief, agreed in May 1963, made specific reference to non-tariff barriers, enabling the dumping issue to be placed on the agenda of the Kennedy Round Trade Negotiating Committee.
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Notes and References
Cited in Robert E. Baldwin, Non tariff Distortions of International Trade (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1970) p. 2.
See generally William Seavey, Dumping since the War. The GATT and National Laws, Thesis no. 205 (Oakland, California: Office Services Corp., 1970).
William Kelly, ‘Nontariff Barriers’, in Bela Balassa (ed.), Studies in Trade Liberalisation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967) p. 298. The British delegation also cited two United States official statements in support of its view that the withholding procedure was being applied punitively. In a statement to the House Ways and Means Committee in July 1957 the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Kendall, said: ‘Witholding of appraisement necessarily creates uncertainty. It is a major deterrent, often more feared than the imposition of the duty.’ Six years later one of Mr Kendall’s successors, Mr Reed, wrote to Senator Humphrey in the following terms: ‘This anti-dumping enforcement record has been considerably stepped up under the Kennedy Administration … Witholdingof appraisement, which often brings imports to a stop while cases are being processed, has increased from an average of 10 per cent of cases processed in the middle 1950’s to 50 per cent in the past year.’ (Congressional Record, 11 November 1963).
John H. Jackson, World Trade and the Law of GATT (Indianapolis; Bobbs-Merill, 1969) p. 410. Article 16(8) of the revised Code, however, states it is subject to amendment by the Parties in the light of experience.
Rodney de C. Grey, The Development of the Canadian Antidumping System (Montreal: Private Planning Association of Canada, 1973) p. 43.
J. F. Beseler, ‘EEC Protection Against Dumping and Subsidies from Third Countries’, Common Market Law Review, Alphenaan den Rijn, Netherlands, 1968, vol. 6, p. 337.
The makers of a product which is not a good substitute for the dumped imports might switch to producing the imported product if its price were to rise. It may be noted, however, that the Code’s product market definition is similar to that adopted by the United States Department of Justice in its ‘Merger Guidelines’. For a general analysis of the market definition problem, see Posner, Antitrust Law: An Economic Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) pp. 125 34.
Furthermore, the importer cannot protect himself against provisional measures which, unlike final anti-dumping duties, are based on dumping margins recorded over some historic period. Provisional measures may therefore apply even if the exporter adjusts his price as soon as anti-dumping proceedings are initiated. See statement by Robert Mundheim, Department of the Treasury in Vanik Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Ways and Means, HR 95–46, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1977) p. 7.
Gerard Curzon, Multilateral Commercial Diplomacy (London: Michael Joseph, 1965) p. 198.
See, for example, evidence of Treasury Department in Administration’s Comprehensive Program for the Steel Industry (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1978). The real “bite” of the Anti-dumping Act is the withholding of appraisement and the requirement that importers post bonds equal to estimated duties, p. 278.
Building EFTA: A Free Trade Area in Europe (Geneva: EFT A Secretariat, 1968) pp. 48–9; Victoria Curzon, The Essentials of Economic Integration (London: Macmillan, for the Trade Policy Research Centre, 1974) pp. 138–9
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© 1980 Richard Dale
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Dale, R. (1980). Dumping and the GATT Code. In: Anti-Dumping Law in a Liberal Trade Order. Trade Policy Research Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05045-1_4
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