Recognition and Regulation of Safeguard Measures Under GATT/WTO (original) (raw)

What are the Provisions about Safeguards?

International trade encompasses a host of countries, activities, functions, processes, products (goods and services) and people, tasked with various duties that are geared towards driving forward this lucrative field. International trade is currently conducted within the World Trade Organization (WTO) multilateral framework. Under this framework, there are rules that govern the manner trade transactions are conducted by Member countries of the WTO; this is because in the course of conducting trade, a host of challenges tend to occur. The rules governing trade transactions are articulated in Article XIX of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994. One common challenge that countries face in the process of trading is import surge, which can loosely be defined as an unusual increase of an import product. There is a legal provision of the WTO under Article XIX of the GATT which deals with remedies of import surges as it will be dealt with in this paper.

Regional safeguard measures: an incentive to sign regional trade agreements without taking into consideration the special needs for developing countries

2011

This paper seeks to provide a brief presentation of safeguard measures in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and how these relate to developing countries. The purpose is also to examine whether regional safeguard measures are different from global safeguard measures and if the possible differences entail any conflict of norms. In order to answer that question, some RTAs have been investigated and compared, with a special emphasis on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The methods for this study are the traditional legal method, i.e. examining the relevant law and making legal arguments and the comparative method where different aspects of the law are examined. The respective regulations of safeguard measures in various RTAs are examined in relation to each other as well as to global regulation, i.e. WTO law.

US Trade Remedies and the Adjustment Process

2004

Michael Mussa (1974, 1978, 1982) was among the first theorists to analyze the economics of adjustment to changing conditions of international trade, and throughout his career he has also been an outspoken commentator on the political economy of trade policy. This paper focuses on the "adjustment environment" in the United States as set out by the active US trade remedy laws (antidumping, countervailing duties and safeguards) as well as the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. We document US industries' use of these various laws and relate trade-remedy use by industry to revealed comparative advantage. We also examine potential effects of trade remedies in promoting or retarding industry adjustment and give examples of industry outcomes.