Anti-Circumvention in the Multilateral System: Plus ça Change

Abstract

World Trade Organization (WTO) Members have long struggled to distinguish between acceptable responses to the imposition of anti-dumping duties and inappropriate efforts to ‘circumvent’ such duties. This article summarizes the efforts to formulate multilateral norms on anti-circumvention, from the early General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) dispute settlement challenges through the Uruguay Round, the WTO's Informal Group on Anti-Circumvention and the more recent Rules negotiations of the Doha Round. Despite these efforts, WTO Members have been unable to agree on what constitutes circumvention, much less adopt rules governing the use of anti-circumvention measures. Yet despite the legal uncertainties, thirty-six Members have notified include anti-circumvention provisions to the Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices, and six Members have reported the initiation of 103 anti-circumvention proceedings to the Committee since 2009. While Members would appear to share a common interest in having some predictability and certainty in defining what is and is not appropriate behaviour, both for exporters and importing Members, the gaps, both of principle and practical, have to date proved insurmountable.