The Compatibility of Anti-Dumping and Safeguard Laws of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf with WTO Law: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) does not oblige its members to develop their own provisions and legislations to impose AD and SGM or to carry out investigations. When WTO members adopt such laws, however, they must be compatible with WTO rules, as stipulated in Article XVI:4 of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organisation (i.e., the WTO Agreement). The objective of this study is to assess the compatibility of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) AD and safeguard laws with the relevant WTO rules. A doctrinal approach was applied to critically analyse and assess the compatibility of the text of the GCC Common Law on AD and Safeguards with their relevant WTO rules. Generally, the results indicated that a few areas of incompatibility exist between GCC Common Law on AD and the WTO AD Agreement (ADA), primarily in relation to those Articles governing the transparency of investigations and announcing final conclusions. Many of these incompatibilities arise from the sheer fact that the GCC’s investigating authorities interpret their own regulations, for example those that define GCC domestic industry and determine causal links between dumping and injury and non-attribution analyses. The text of the GCC Common Law on Safeguards is fully compatible with the WTO Agreement on Safeguards (SA), except for the Articles governing the transparency of investigations and public notice of final conclusions. The XX text, however, is incompatible with the legal requirements under Article XIX of GATT 1994. There are other significant areas of incompatibility between the WTO safeguard system and the GCC’s safeguard practices due to how the GCC investigating authority interprets and implements the definitions of terms such as ‘like product’ or ‘product under investigation’ for the GCC’s domestic industry, and due to principles of transparency in receiving complaints and initiating investigations. The results suggest that GCC Members may need to reform their AD and safeguard laws to align with WTO laws. The project provides some recommendations to guide these changes.