Safeguard Measures Research Articles

The European Union's safeguard for rice imports from Cambodia and Myanmar

Following a substantial increase in Indica rice imports from Cambodia and Myanmar, the European Union (EU) adopted safeguard measures to reinstate the common‐customs tariff rate of 175 euros per ton from 2019, with progressive liberalization over three years. To estimate the impact of safeguard duties, this paper uses a sample of milled rice imports from 28 EU importers during 2017–20 and adopts a triple‐differences approach. The results show that safeguard duties have a significantly negative impact on import values and quantity of affected goods and a significantly positive impact on import prices. Safeguard duties appear to induce trade redirection to other third markets but produce little substitution effects for EU rice producers.

Safeguard Activity in 2022: An Overview of Notifications Made to the WTO Committee on Safeguards

In this note, the author presents a summary of the most important safeguard-related developments notified to the WTO Committe on Safeguards for the year 2022. safeguard notifications, Committee on Safeguards, initiation of investigation, finding of serious injury, decision to impose a safeguard measure

Research on Types, Implementation Issues, and Countermeasures of Teacher Exchange Rotation in Compulsory Education

Teacher exchange rotation policy is significant in Chinas compulsory education to promote its balanced development and education equity. Currently, the Chinese political structure of teacher exchange rotation is diverse and complicated and has various problems in practice. In compulsory education, teacher exchange rotation is divided into two main modes: alliance school exchange and voluntary service exchange. In practice, there are many problems in teacher exchange rotation, such as insufficient system and mechanism of teacher exchange rotation, insufficient participation of teachers and ineffective safeguard measures. In terms of countermeasures, this study analyzes the types and implementation issues of teachers' rotation of the compulsory education, and puts forward relevant suggestions, i.e. perfecting the system design and perfecting the operation mechanism; strengthening humanistic care and enhancing teachers' willingness to participate; strengthen the guarantee and promote the quality improvement of rotation.

Evaluation of policy synergy in coastal ocean pollution prevention and control: The case from China

In recent years, the Chinese central government and coastal provincial governments have promulgated a series of Coastal Ocean Pollution Prevention and Control Programs (COPPCP). Whether the government’s COPPCP can achieve policy synergy will affect the level of marine pollution governance. This study constructs a two-dimensional assessment framework of policy “subject department”–”content theme” and conducts a comprehensive evolution of policy synergy from objective, process, and state perspectives. From the subject department dimension, the study used social network analysis to find that interdepartmental collaboration was not done well overall. The policy synergy process is difficult to be guaranteed. Meanwhile, the structure of departmental synergy networks in different provinces shows differences and can be divided into three types of governments with single-core, multi-core, and vertical synergy. In the content synergy dimension, it was found by the Chinese Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers-Whole Word Masking (BERT-WWM) model that the policy content is mainly focused on four themes of marine ecological protection (MEP), marine pollution control (MPC), land-based pollution reduction (LPR), and safeguard measures (SAM). The three types of governments show different performances on the four theme synergies. The governments perform well in the objective synergy; however, it is difficult for them to agree on the policy tool synergy, and the status of policy synergy is difficult to maintain. This paper adopts the BERT-WWM model instead of the manual coding method in the previous policy content analysis, enhancing the evaluation’s objectivity. The study results will provide a reference for further improving marine pollution governance systems in developing countries.

Reactions for actions? Trust in protective behaviors and safeguarding measures in the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden

To minimize the spread of Covid-19, changing every-day behavior has been key. Trust in the effectiveness of individual protective measures (response efficacy) and confidence in collective safeguarding measures (strategy efficacy), offers an incitement for acting adequately. Efficacy beliefs of protective measures might be especially relevant to study in the Swedish context, since Sweden, in contrast to countries facing hard lock-downs, launched safeguarding measures based on individual responsibility and voluntary actions. We aimed to assess associations between on the one hand, response efficacy and strategy efficacy, and on the other hand, propensity for behavior change and support of protective measures. Furthermore, to assess associations between the efficacy beliefs and comprehension of and confidence in information about the virus, prosocial beliefs and worry of Covid-19. Reactions were assessed in a Swedish sample close in time to experiences via the SEMA3 app from March 25th to May 17th 2020. Study participants had replied to questions on strategy efficacy (n = 175) or response efficacy (n = 157) and 146 participants had replied to both. High response efficacy was associated with propensity for behavior change, support of protective measures and confidence in Covid-19 information. Low strategy efficacy was associated with lower comprehension of and confidence in information about Covid-19. The results suggest that strengthening efficacy beliefs can be a way to promote protective behaviors. Furthermore, the result underscores the importance of information being easy to understand and trustworthy. Finding ways to increase public understanding of the effectiveness of protective measures, including vaccination, seems crucial in pandemic times.

‘Unforeseen Developments’ Before and AfterUS – Safeguard Measure on PV Products: High Standard or New Standard?

AbstractThis paper offers a comprehensive study of the jurisprudence on the ‘as a result of unforeseen developments’ test under the WTO's safeguards (SG) rules. It contributes to the existing scholarship by making three fresh arguments. First, the Appellate Body's decision to ‘revive’ this test as a prerequisite for the application of SG measures is not necessarily incompatible with the drafting record of the SG Agreement, even though this agreement does not make explicit reference to the test. Second, the test is not excessively difficult to satisfy under the standard of review established by case law, even though governments failed to pass it in almost all SG disputes to date. Third, in sharp contrast, the recentUS–Safeguard Measure on PV Productsdecision took a strikingly more deferential approach which fell far short of the established standard of review, leading to the first and only decision in which the test was found to be satisfied. This decision has arguably created a new standard which could lead to abuse of SG measures and damage to the dispute settlement system and hence should be avoided in future disputes.

Competitive Strategy and Developing Direction of Second-hand Trading Platform—Taking Xianyu As an Example

Due to the increasing development of e-commerce and the maturity of C2C business, the second-hand trading platform of idle goods has also begun to actively explore the perfection of online services. At present, research on online marketing strategies at home and abroad has reached a certain scale, but it is relatively rare for the targeted field of second-hand idle items. The customer base is large, but there is less research on relevant aspects. This paper takes Xianyu APP as the research object. Through the use of literature research methods and observation methods, this paper analyzes its current situation and shortcomings in the competitive strategy of Internet platforms, combines its own natural advantages, and formulates the optimization safeguard measures and suggestions required for the competitive strategy of Xianyu APP in the new network environment. In the competitive strategy research of Xianyu APP, it can supplement the content of competitive marketing in the idle item trading module to a certain extent, give a development direction to domestic second-hand trading platforms, and can also bring reference to relevant platforms and enterprises.

Impact of Digital Platform Organization on Reducing Green Production Risk to Tackle COVID-19: Evidence from Farmers in Jiangsu China

The agricultural organization based on digital platforms in C2F (Company–Platform–Farmers) may be an effective way to reduce the increased risk of green production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the specific mechanism and impact involved are unclear. Applying risk cognition and decision theory, we built the theoretical framework on platform organization, pandemic risk, perception value, and green production continuity, and ascertained the impact effects and path using the PLS-SEM method. We found that the risk of COVID-19 overflow had a significant impact on farmers’ green production continuity by mediating perception value, especially regarding reduced green technology adoption intention and increased cost of living. Utilizing perfect platform value cognition, participation co-operation, access and benefit distribution, and safeguard and restraint measures of platform organization in C2F, we offered a new approach to reduce the green production risks caused by COVID-19, such as material and labor shortages, financial pressure, sales channel blockages, and price volatility. We explained the behavior-moderating motivation of farmers with different risk preferences and subjective norms in relation to tackling COVID-19. We should aim to perfect the functions of digital platform organizations to optimize the benefit linkages in C2F, accelerate farmers’ digitization ability cultivation to increase the cognitive risk level, and strengthen the policy guidance of COVID-19 prevention to reduce the influence of farmers’ subjective norms.

Correspondence article on the research protocol titled ' Towards Health Equity and Transformative Action on tribal health (THETA) study to describe, explain and act on tribal health inequities in India: A health systems research study protocol' published in Wellcome Open Research in December 2019.

Research on indigenous (Tribal) populations is a step towards understanding the various tribal health issues and challenges and paves the way for addressing these issues. However, such populations are categorised as vulnerable and marginalised according to National ethical guidelines by Indian council of medical research. Hence, adequate measures are needed to be ensured by researchers while undertaking any research involving tribal populations to safeguard the rights of research participants. The purpose of this correspondence is to initiate a discussion among the researchers to give due consideration to research ethics especially when the research is being conducted on vulnerable populations and take adequate safeguard measures as suggested by National ethical guidelines to protect the rights of study participants.

Exploration of professional practice teaching reform in local application-oriented universities——Taking mechanical engineering as an example

With the increasing demand for teaching quality and personnel training of higher education in China, it has become the goal of application-oriented universities to cultivate high-quality composite application talents with innovative ability, practical ability and entrepreneurial spirit. Innovative professional practice teaching reform is an important way for higher education to better achieve the goal of talent training and improve teaching quality. Firstly, the necessity and significance of professional practice teaching reform is expounded in combination with the current situation of the mechanical engineering and education. Then, the content of teaching reform is explored in the light of the present practical teaching situation of mechanical engineering specialty. Finally, based on the current situation and development goals of the application-oriented universities, some safeguards measures are put forward to ensure the smooth development of practical teaching reform and achieve effective results.

Impact of measurement error on deep neural networks for nuclear material accountancy

Continued growth in the nuclear industry is resulting in an increased burden for regulators due to the costs associated with implementing traditional safeguards. One such stakeholder, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has published a research and development roadmap of suggested improvements that would help safeguards remain effective and efficient in the face of growing demands. These priorities include identifying, evaluating, and testing promising applications of robotics and machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) to improve safeguards. Nuclear material accountancy (NMA) is of particular interest because traditional approaches require time and resource intensive destructive assay (DA) measurements. One desirable improvement would be utilization of unattended measurements in order to reduce the burden of frequent DA measurements required at large throughput facilities, even though such unattended measurements would likely have higher uncertainty. The application of ML could improve detection of small changes, potentially due to material theft, in these higher uncertainty measurements collected at nuclear facilities to enable near real time anomaly detection. However, unique challenges arise when attempting to use deep neural networks with datasets containing errors that are characterized by models commonly associated with safeguards measurements. The purpose of this paper is to outline both traditional and ML based approaches to NMA and compare them through example. It can be shown that traditional methods for NMA often offers superior performance to the proposed ML pipeline, which consists supervised regression and unsupervised classification, when trained on datasets that contain measurement errors. ML approaches may still be competitive with traditional methods for NMA, however, special care must be taken to mitigate the impact of measurement error that disproportionately affects deep learning approaches.

Temporary trade barriers and enterprise export market changes: evidence from China

In theory, previous studies believed that the export market of enterprises was homogeneous. There is no difference in each export market, which is obviously inconsistent with the actual trade situation. This paper divides the export market of enterprises into main export market and secondary export market according to the export status, explores the export changes of enterprises to the main export market and secondary export market respectively when the temporary trade barriers of the main export market to the trade exporting country are raised. This paper focuses on the impact of the main export market on the anti-dumping degree, countervailing level and the improvement of trade safeguard measures on the export conversion of enterprises between the main and secondary markets. The research shows that the increase of the anti-dumping degree of the main market against the trade exporting countries will lead to the higher probability of role exchange between the main and secondary markets; The countervailing level of the main market against the trade exporting countries rises, and the export of enterprises is more likely to turn to the secondary market; The greater the trade safeguard measures in the main market, the more likely the secondary market will become the main market.

The Effectiveness of Fabric Safeguards in Protecting and Improving the Indonesian Textile Industry Competitiveness

This study investigates the effectiveness of fabric safeguards set by the Indonesian government on protecting and improving the competitiveness of the textile industry in the domestic and global markets. Data on exports and imports of 107 HS codes of fabrics subject to additional import duties in 2011-2020 are used to measure Indonesia's competitiveness compared with six major exporting countries. The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and the Trade Specialization Index (TSI) interpret the Indonesian fabric competitiveness and its competitors. Independent variables of this research are Safeguard Measure Import Duty (BMTP), Most Favoured Nation (MFN) rates, period of investigation, exchange rate, and inflation. The results show that the safeguard, MFN, and period of investigation significantly affect the decline in fabric imports, but other variables have no significant effect. The regime effectively protects Indonesia's textile industry, which is marked by a decrease in the value and volume of imports during the validity period. The RCA indicates that Indonesia does not have a comparative advantage, and according to the TSI, Indonesia is an importing country. BMTP cannot change Indonesia's position as a net exporter and improve its competitiveness. This study implies that it is necessary to increase investment in more efficient production machines with high productivity, optimize the supply chain, reduce production and enterprise costs, and restructure business models; thus, their competitiveness increases in domestic and foreign markets. Keywords: BMTP, fabric, comparative advantage, trade index, impor duties

Measurement and analysis of airtightness safeguard measures for typical ultra-low energy buildings

Zero-energy buildings constitute an effective means of reducing urban carbon emissions. High airtightness, a typical characteristic of zero-energy building, is closely related to the building's air infiltration and has a significant impact on the performance of the building envelope, indoor air quality, building energy consumption, and efficient operation of air-conditioning systems. However, thus far, systematic developments in high-airtightness assurance technologies remain scarce. Most existing studies have tested the airtightness of buildings and typical building components; however, in-depth analyses into the formation of infiltration have not been reported. Therefore, for realizing zero-energy buildings, ensuring airtightness is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed. Accordingly, in this study, based on several building airtightness measurement studies, the typical air leakage paths in buildings were summarized, and the causes of typical air leakage components in buildings were further analysed by tracing construction processes. Moreover, targeted measures for airtightness in buildings were established and applied to practical cases. Lastly, the resulting improved building airtightness was measured and the results show that the airtightness of the measured ultra-low energy consumption buildings ranges from 0.13 h−1 to 0.57 h−1, with a mean value of 0.32 h−1. The effectiveness of the airtightness safeguard measures was verified. This study serves as a basis for the assumption of the air leakage path distribution when simulating building air infiltration and also provides a design reference for improving the construction technologies and airtightness of buildings.

Hierarchical medical system and local medical performance: A quasi-natural experiment evaluation in Shanghai, China.

In order to maintain high standards of healthcare, it is necessary for medical departments to provide high-quality and affordable medical services to local residents. This has been widely accepted in developed countries, while the medical treatment systems in developing countries remain to be improved. This research is based on a pilot of a hierarchical medical system in Shanghai, China, to evaluate the effects on policy of medical reform in developing countries. By means of the difference-in-differences (DID) method, the causal relationship between medical care services' improvement and hierarchical medical systems' implementation could be identified. This project also explores the differential effects of policy intervention and confirms that the pilot showed a significant improvement in medical performance in central districts while the result remains uncertain in terms of suburban districts. Furthermore, the dynamic effect of a hierarchical medical system has also been identified with the event study method, while the policy pilot only had short-term effects on local medical resources' improvement. In order to ascertain the function mechanisms of hierarchical medical systems and explain why the policy pilot only had short-term effects, this project also conducts influencing mechanism analysis with the triple-differences method (also known as difference-in-difference-in-differences or DDD method). According to the empirical results, there is no direct evidence indicating the hierarchical medical system could bring obvious benefits from the perspectives of patients and medical institutions. For better implementation of hierarchical medical systems in the future, long-term supervision mechanisms should be given more attention in the enforcement process of hierarchical medical systems. At the same time, more safeguarding measures should be implemented, such as supervising the payment systems of the medical institution and conducting performance evaluation.

The Turn to Safeguard Measures in the Solar Trade War

The growing energy security and climate change concerns have created a huge demand and global market for renewable energy technologies such as solar panels. The race to capture a share of this lucrative global market and other political economy considerations have inspired a trade war. Much of this war has been fought with and against green industrial policy measures such as subsidies tied to local content requirements (LCRs) and trade remedy instruments such as antidumping and countervailing duties. Safeguard measures are the latest additions to the armoury of trade defence measures in this burgeoning trade war. This article examines the dynamics behind and the implications of the turn to renewable energy safeguards for the global effort to accelerate the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies in light of the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) Panel report on US – Safeguard Measure on PV Products. The article makes three interrelated arguments. First, the WTO jurisprudence on renewable energy support measures and rapidly evolving global value chains in renewable energy technologies helped spur the turn to safeguard measures (SGMs). Second, the seal of approval from the Panel will drive interest in the use of renewable energy safeguards. Third, the increased and unfettered use of safeguard measures is detrimental to the transition towards sustainable energy sources. Safeguards, Solar Panels: Renewable Energy, Trade War, DS562, Trade and Environment

United States—Safeguard Measure on Imports of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products

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China and the WTO: From Difficult Access to Partial Leadership

This paper has explored the interactions between China and the WTO, arguing that it can be divided into three different stages, ranging from difficult access to comprehensive adaptation and to partial leadership. Through the three stages, the conflict and resolution of the dilemmas of market economy status and developing country status is the driving force. In the difficult access period, the market economy dilemma embodies the optional safeguard measures and antidumping measures and the developing country dilemma embodies the access to the market of finance, insurance, and telecommunication in the negotiation of China’s entry to the GATT/WTO. In the comprehensive adaption period, China, out of defending its own market economy status, has been using the WTO rules to counter America’s demands on China such as anti-dumping proceedings and the criticism of “stagnation of China’s reform”. Meanwhile, China still has been sticking to its special and differential treatment of developing country status. In the period of partial leadership, while insisting that it is a developing country, China has strategically advocated that developing countries should realize its national interest by adopting the new policy of “open for development”, embodying its leadership in the emerging issues of WTO negotiations such as the e-commerce and investment facilitation.

Cashew expansion holds potential for carbon stocks enhancement in the forest-savannah transitional zone of Ghana

Despite the scientific contributions of earlier studies to the understanding of shifts in land-use to cashew in the forest-savannah transition zone, some questions remain unanswered: (1) what is the extent of landscape-level conversions associated with cashew? (2) could the expansion of cashew in the forest-savannah transitional zone potentially serve as a carbon mitigation strategy relative to other land uses at the landscape level? and (3) how does the land use dynamics associated with cashew development hold implications for Ghana’s climate change mitigation strategies? The Wenchi Municipality was used as a case study. Landsat images for 2000, 2015 and 2020 were classified to produce land cover maps using the random forest algorithm to overall accuracies of 72.6 %, 86.9 % and 91.2 %, respectively. The InVEST software was used to estimate the carbon sequestered by each land cover class in the landscape. Finally, 150 cashew farmers, four focus group discussions and key experts were interviewed. The results show that cashew plantations had increased in the Municipality by 31103.05 ha between 2000 and 2020. The shift in land use towards cashew increased the Above Ground Carbon from 599956.73 tons to 1039402.32 tons between 2000 and 2020, representing 696219.15 tons (883.5 %) increase in the Municipality. According to the farmers, the shift in land use to cashew was mainly due to the available ready market and relative higher income. This suggests that, there is great potential for mitigating climate change in the forest-savannah transitional zone using cashew. Hence, Ghana needs to explore the gains associated with cashew plantations, particularly as it transforms low-income crops with challenging post-harvest and marketing constraints into relatively lucrative income generation cashew, which has major implications for improvements in livelihood and co-benefits for carbon stocks enhancement. Ultimately, as Ghana rolls out its Nationally Determined Contributions implementation among other forestry sector climate change mitigation interventions, it is important to consider the role of cashew as a major contributor to carbon stocks enhancement within the Forest–Savannah transitional zone. This study provides major decision support for formulating policies, interventions, and measures to promote climate change and livelihood improvement opportunities while rolling out safeguard measures to prevent further conversion of relatively high carbon stocks landscapes, such as the savannah woodlands within the forest-savannah transitional zone.

Introducing Robust Statistics in the Uncertainty Quantification of Nuclear Safeguards Measurements.

The monitoring of nuclear safeguards measurements consists of verifying the coherence between the operator declarations and the corresponding inspector measurements on the same nuclear items. Significant deviations may be present in the data, as consequence of problems with the operator and/or inspector measurement systems. However, they could also be the result of data falsification. In both cases, quantitative analysis and statistical outcomes may be negatively affected by their presence unless robust statistical methods are used. This article aims to investigate the benefits deriving from the introduction of robust procedures in the nuclear safeguards context. In particular, we will introduce a robust estimator for the estimation of the uncertainty components of the measurement error model. The analysis will prove the capacity of robust procedures to limit the bias in simulated and empirical contexts to provide more sounding statistical outcomes. For these reasons, the introduction of robust procedures may represent a step forward in the still ongoing development of reliable uncertainty quantification methods for error variance estimation.