This book discusses the law of safeguard measures as laid down in the WTO agreements and cases decided by the Panel and the Appellate Body. The book sets out a comprehensive treatment of safeguard measures covering the history and evolution of the law, and considers safeguards from a developing countries perspective drawing examining how beneficial the provisions relating to safeguard measures and their interpretation given by the Panel and Appellate Body have been for developing countries.
This is a comprehensive overview of the law and practice of the World Trade Organization. It begins with the institutional law of the WTO, moving eventually to the consequences of globalization. New chapters on Trade in Agriculture and on Government Procurement and Trade.
The editors have succeeded in bringing together an excellent mix of leading scholars and practitioners. No book on the WTO has had this wide a scope before or covered the legal framework, economic and political issues, current and would-be countries and a outlook to the future like these three volumes do. 3000 pages, 80 chapters in 3 volumes cover a very interdiscplinary field that touches upon law, economics and politics.
In the decade since the establishment of the WTO, the great majority of disputes between member states resolved and decided through the dispute settlement system of the WTO arose in the field of trade remedies law, a fact which clearly shows the high demand by the trade community for the rule of law in this area. Responsive to such needs, the fourth volume encompasses the whole range of trade remedies regulation under the auspices of the WTO in the respective articles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the related multilateral agreements on trade in goods, i.e., Articles VI, XII, XIX GATT 1994; the Understanding on the Balance-of-Payments; the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI GATT 1994 (Anti-Dumping Agreement); the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Duties; and the Agreement on Safeguards. Leading practitioners and scholars have gathered to provide an invaluable insight and easy access to the law on trade remedies in an article-by-article commentary approach. As such, it will be an essential work not only for trade remedies practitioners but to persons interested in trade remedies be they scholars, academics, international and domestic lawyers, political scientists and economists, or NGO representatives.
Among restrictions on imports, safeguard measures are particularly controversial in that they are invoked in the absence of any unfair trade practice. Safeguards interfere substantially with the normal stream of trade, and their improper application undermines the objectives of the WTO. Recent WTO cases have brought the attention of trade lawyers to the absence of comprehensive materials on this complex subject, and highlighted the need for a reliable guide to the WTO rules on safeguards. Dr. Y.S. Lee, perhaps the world's foremost authority on safeguard measures, has provided such a guide, here updated in its second edition. Readers may expect from this book comprehensive coverage on safeguards to date with legal analysis of the important issues in the interpretation and application of the current rules on safeguards. The author also proposes modifications to enhance and clarify the discipline of safeguards. The crucial issues raised include the following: economic and political justifications of safeguards;applicability of GATT Article XIX;interpretation and application of the Agreement on Safeguards, including non-discriminatory application of safeguards and justification of safeguards-in-response;transitional product-specific safeguard measures against China; andemergency safeguards to trade in services. The focus of the book is on the WTO Agreement on Safeguards, as interpreted by WTO Panel and Appellate Body reports in key cases, including Korea Dairy Products, Argentina Footwear, United States Wheat Glutten, United States Lamb Meat, Chile Price Band System, United States Line Pipe and United States Steel Products. Dr. Lee summarizes the various key findings and provides lucid and well-balanced analysis of these reports. Other WTO rules considered include GATT Articles XIX, XII, and XVIII; the Understanding on Balance of Payments of the GATT 1994; the Agreement on Agriculture; the Agreement on Textile and Clothing; Article XII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); and the Protocol on the Accession of the People's Republic of China. Safeguard Measures in World Trade comes at a time when safeguard measures continue to mount in various parts of the world and a possible domino effect can destabilize the international trading system. It will be of inestimable value to government officials, trade lawyers, international business people, and academics in trade law and related fields.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade remedies (antidumping, anti-subsidy and safeguard agreements) are instruments used by WTO members to counter the economic injury caused by dumping, subsidies and the sudden and unforeseen increased imports. They are exceptions to the WTO principle of free trade and to the prohibition for States to react unilaterally to protect their own rights and interests, and as a result they have been accused by some as being the new tools of protectionism. This book analyses of the role and principles of WTO trade remedies in international law. In particular, it focuses on their aims, their structure, and their position within the WTO and more in general, the international legal system. The book considers trade remedies in light of fragmentation theories of international law and addresses the question how, and to what extent WTO law reflects and influences public international law.
