Abstract
The Appellate Body (AB) report in Korea -- Pneumatic Valves is among the most structurally complex of recent trade remedies reports. The AB weaves a complicated web to explicate the intricacies of the relationship among the relevant provisions on injury determination in anti-dumping disputes in the midst of a contentious and long-running series of disputes between two close regional trading powers. This Article first examines the Korean investigation and its significance in economic terms. Second, it analyzes the AB’s conclusions on Article 6.2 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding regarding the panel request and the significance of the AB’s treatment. Third, it studies the AB’s comments on the panel’s anti-dumping calculations where the AB amplifies its prior pronouncements on the elements of injury and causation. Finally, the Article situates this dispute in the broader political debates playing out both at the AB and between the two disputing parties.
Highlights
The Appellate Body (AB) report in Korea -- Pneumatic Valves is among the most structurally complex of recent trade remedies reports
The AB report in Korea -- Pneumatic Valves is among the most structurally complex of recent trade remedies reports, first, because the AB had to address the panel’s disposal of several of Japan’s claims as falling outside its terms of reference, and second, because the AB weaves a complicated web to explicate the intricacies of the relationship among the relevant provisions on injury determination in anti-dumping disputes
Korea -- Pneumatic Valves concerns anti-dumping duties imposed by Korea on imports of pneumatic valves originating from Japan, as described in the Resolution of Final Determination on Dumping and Injury to Domestic Industry of Valves for Pneumatic Transmissions from Japan adopted by the Korea Trade Commission (KTC) (Final Resolution) and the final report by the KTC’s Office of Trade Investigation (OTI) (Report) in January 2015
Summary
Japan and Korea’s eight World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes against one another stand against a backdrop of a longstanding political and cultural dispute (Maizland 2019). Apart from manifesting ongoing tensions in their bilateral relationship, Korea -- Pneumatic Valves has significant ramifications for at least two legal and institutional debates in international trade law: first, the powers and reach of panels and the Appellate Body (AB) in light of their terms of reference, and second, the interpretation of Article 3 of the Anti-Dumping Agreement (AD Agreement), which concerns the determination of injury in anti-dumping investigations. This Article takes up these two issues of procedure and substance but notes the larger context in which these two disputing parties pursued this rather technical and complicated trade remedies case. We situate this dispute in the broader political and geoeconomic debates playing out both at the AB and between the two disputing parties
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