INTRODUCTION

While professing support for trade liberalisation, trade policy-makers often insist that international trade should at the same time be ‘fair’. ‘Unfair’ trade comes in many forms and guises. Unfair trade practices include cartel agreements, price fixing, and the abuse of a dominant position on the market. WTO law, at present, does not provide for rules on these and many other particular forms of unfair trade. It does provide, however, for relatively detailed rules with respect to dumping and certain types of subsidisation – two specific practices commonly considered to be unfair trade practices. This chapter examines the WTO rules on dumping and subsidisation.

DUMPING AND ANTI-DUMPING MEASURES

As already discussed in Chapter 1, ‘dumping’ is the bringing of a product onto the market of another country (or customs territory) at a price less than the normal value of that product. In WTO law, dumping is not prohibited. However, dumping is to be ‘condemned’ if it causes injury to the domestic industry of the importing country. The essence of the WTO rules on dumping is that Members are allowed to take certain measures, which are otherwise WTO-inconsistent, to protect their domestic industry from the injurious effects of dumping.

During the first six months of 2004, eighteen WTO Members imposed a total of fifty-two new definitive anti-dumping measures against exports from twenty-four countries or customs territories. This represents a significant decline from the 114 measures imposed during the corresponding period of 2003.