|
||
TWN Info
Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Feb09/06) Trade:
Rules Group discusses Chair's text on anti-dumping At the informal meeting, the Chair of the Group, Ambassador Guillermo Valles Galmes of Uruguay, introduced his text as a document that reflects reality -- the widely-conflicting views among delegations on a number of issues before the Group. He said that these issues are between brackets in his text, and that he had tried to be even-handed in the selection of these issues. According
to trade officials, (The
FANs include (The Chair's new text on anti-dumping contains 11 bracketed issues, including on the controversial issue of "zeroing". On the zeroing issue, the new text says: ["ZEROING: Delegations remain profoundly divided on this issue. Positions range from insistence on a total prohibition of zeroing irrespective of the comparison methodology used and in respect of all proceedings to a demand that zeroing be specifically authorized in all contexts]". (The new text from the Chair, and the square bracketed portion on "zeroing" has come even as the Appellate Body, in a dispute brought by the EC against the US over the latter's continued use of "zeroing", handed down on 4 February another ruling against the US practice, and reversing yet again another panel report -- allowing "zeroing"-- by favouring transaction-specific rather than product-specific and exporter-specific determinations, as the Appellate Body has consistently held. (In the latest Appellate Body report, in a concurrent opinion, an unidentified member of the Appellate Body division has noted the efforts of successive panels to find dumping to be permissively determined at the level of individual transactions and thus permitting zeroing, as not lacking "hermeneutic ingenuity", and the Appellate Body reversing them, and speaking "definitively" on the issue of zeroing. The extensive debate over time (between panels and the Appellate Body), the unidentified member has said, demonstrates the "robustness" of the WTO's dispute settlement system and "its limits.") According to trade officials, other members of the FANs also welcomed the new text, such as Hong Kong-China, which stressed the need to strengthen anti-dumping disciplines in the light of the economic crisis. According
to trade officials, According
to trade officials, The EU expressed support for the new approach. It stressed that it could not agree to a mini-package of just transparency provisions and leaving the bracketed issues out. The EU also said that the Group has to have ambition, and that it needs to send the signal that it will improve rules to close loopholes for protectionist minds. The
The
The Chair said that the Golden Triangle -- ambition, realism and flexibility -- should guide members in moving forward and sustaining the bottom-up approach. Ambassador Galmes said that the members bear the responsibility for showing flexibility, because the negotiations could not be just a "wish list". He said that he would be consulting with delegations on the next steps forward. +
|