Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 8 • Number 15 • 28th April 2004
‘Byrd Amendment’ Crops Up In Rules Group
The WTO Negotiating Group on Rules convened on 26 and 28 April, with delegates meeting informally between the official meetings. The Negotiation Group — which focuses on the review and improvement of WTO rules that govern issues such as dumping, antidumping measures, subsidies and countervailing measures — discussed antidumping at the 26 April meeting, while the 28 April meeting centred on fisheries subsidies.
"Byrd Amendment" crops up, spurs controversy
During the first day of the meeting, Members considered issues raised in a submission by the US (TN/RL/W/153, available at http://docsonline.wto.org). The submission sought to spur discussion around: the potential to establish regional antidumping authorities in order to bring down costs for developing countries; the right of Members to determine the disbursement of collected antidumping duties; the use of "facts available" in antidumping investigations. Many Members reacted to the second issue with concern. Referring back to a case in which the WTO dispute settlement body had ruled against a US law — the so called "Byrd Amendment" — which allowed for collected antidumping duties to be channelled back to the injured US company (see BRIDGES Weekly, 22 January 2003), Korea said the issue did not belong in the rules group. Noting that a WTO panel, sustained by the Appellate Body, had ruled the "Byrd Amendment" illegal, Japan said it was "quite surprised and deeply puzzled" that the US had brought the issue up, and pointed out that the US had not implemented the ruling. Japan said that new rules on this point would never be acceptable as the outcome of negotiations. Brazil said changing the rules to make illegal measures WTO consistent would set a bad precedent. Several other countries also echoed these concerns. The US, however, said it was "beyond question that countries have the sovereign right to distribute government revenues as they deem appropriate," but added that the US intended to implement the "Byrd Amendment" ruling.
The other two discussion topics introduced by the US were supported by other Members. The group then went on to discuss a paper (TN/RL/W/150) by the Friends of Anti-Dumping Negotiations (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Korea, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, and Hong Kong, China) proposing that certain provisions of the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement related to the determination of "normal value" in anti-dumping investigations be amended. The "Friends" want to change WTO rules to prevent abuse of anti-dumping measures and burdensome or unnecessary investigations. The US, on the other hand, wishes to maintain maximum flexibility in the use of trade remedies and focuses on closing loopholes in the existing Agreement.
Fisheries subsidy debate revived
New Zealand submitted a proposal on fisheries subsidies, focusing on overcapacity and overexploitation (TN/RL/W/154). The proposal noted that a number of previous submissions (see BRIDGES Weekly, 25 June 2003) had sought to define categories of forbidden subsidies based on their contribution to overcapacity in the fisheries sector or to overfishing. New Zealand, however, stressed that explicitly addressing these issues through subsidy rules was difficult, and suggested instead an approach based on a broad prohibition of programmes that have revenue or cost impacts for the fisheries industry and thereby lead to overcapacity and overfishing. Under this broad approach, New Zealand highlighted the need for exceptions and transitional provisions, including special and differential treatment for developing countries, and suggested the negotiation of a "negative list" of exceptions to exempt environment-friendly and other subsidies.
The US, Iceland, Chile, Norway and Peru, members of the "Friends of Fish" group along with New Zealand, supported the proposal. Argentina, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan also supported it. The EC said that while agreeing with the idea behind the proposal, it felt it was too brutal, and stressed the need for exemptions for programmes in developing countries and in poorer regions in the EC itself. India and Malaysia also said that special and differential treatment for developing countries was essential.
Japan — supported by Korea and Chinese Taipei — opposed the New Zealand proposal, calling it extreme and outside the mandate agreed for the Doha round. New Zealand, however, felt that views in the debate now were less polarised than before, and called on Members to work together to find ways to limit harmful fisheries subsidies.
The next meeting of the Negotiating Group is scheduled for 7-8 June.
ICTSD reporting.