Safeguard

The WTO Dispute Settlement System — What Member Comments on the Recent Panel Decision in United States – Safeguard Measure on Import on Crystaline Silicon Photovoltaic Products Say about the Need for Reform

· September 30, 2021 · dispute settlement · , , , , , , , , · No Comments

Last week, I wrote on the September 2 panel report pertaining to China’s challenge of the U.S. safeguard action on imports of crystaline silicon photovoltaic products. See September 20, 2021: The WTO panel report on the U.S. safeguard case on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products — a well reasoned report but exemplifying the challenges that China’s non-market economy and policies pose to global trade, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/09/20/the-wto-panel-report-on-the-u-s-safeguard-case-on-crystalline-silicon-photovoltaic-products-a-well-reasoned-report-but-exemplifying-the-challenges-that-chinas-non-market-economy-and-policies-pos/.

China filed an appeal on September 16, 2021 (WT/DS562/12), becoming the 21st “current notified appeal” (the fifth in 2021, following five in 2020, following eight in 2019 and three in 2018 that have not be heard or completed in light of the lack of a quorum for the Appellate Body). See WTO, Appellate Body, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/appellate_body_e.htm (Current notified appeals).

Earlier this week, the WTO posted a note on the Dispute Settlement Body meeting held on September 27, 2021 in which the panel report and China’s appeal were on the agenda. See WTO News, Panels established to review steel duties in China, food import measures in Panama, 27 September 2021, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/dsb_27sep21_e.htm. The summary of the meeting on the panel report is copied below and shows sharp difference of opinion between China and the United States with some comments recorded by the EU and Canada.

“Statement by China regarding the panel report in the dispute “US — safeguard measure on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic products” (DS562)

“China sharply criticized the dispute panel ruling in DS562, which was circulated on 2 September and which China appealed on 16 September. China said it is deeply concerned with the systematically harmful findings made by the panel, the first time that a complainant’s case against a safeguard measure has been rejected in its entirety.  The panel report severely deviated from all these jurisprudences and substantially lowered the threshold of imposing safeguard measures, China said. It added that the dangerous signal sent by the panel will lead to the abuse of safeguard measures and thus seriously undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system.

“China went on to detail what it said were the serious legal errors contained in the ruling, including a gross misreading of legal requirements for imposing safeguard matters as well as a major misunderstanding of a panel’s proper role in examining trade remedy investigations.  China said safeguards are extraordinary measures for extraordinary situations and cannot be used as a convenient tool for rescuing a domestic industry in bad shape because of its own business decisions and injuries caused by other factors.

“The United States said China should focus on what matters.  First, it matters that the WTO panel found the US safeguard to be consistent with WTO rules.  The US welcomes those findings but said the win came at a very high cost, namely the crushing of a thriving US industry by China’s massive non-market excess capacity.  This dispute demonstrates that WTO rules do not effectively constrain China’s damaging non-market behaviour.  Second, it matters that China once again sought to use the WTO dispute settlement system as a vehicle to create new rules that would limit a member’s ability to defend itself from China’s non-market practices. The panel rightly rejected every single one of China’s arguments. 

“The US said it was disappointed that China has decided to appeal the panel report despite overwhelming evidence of the damaging effects of China’s non-market practices.  The safeguard measure serves to support the US domestic industry’s efforts to adjust to import competition after global excess solar cell and module capacity pushed the industry to the brink of extinction, mainly as a result of excess capacity fueled by China’s non-market practices which are in direct contradiction to its WTO commitments.

“China responded that its appeal was not intended to delay the adoption of the dispute report or create new rules but to ensure the interpretation of the WTO rules in a fair and reasonable manner and ensure respect for past jurisprudence.

“The EU said the case was yet another example of the grave consequences stemming from the continued blockage of Appellate Body appointments since 2017, which frustrates members’ ability to exercise their rights under WTO dispute settlement procedures.  Canada added that finding a solution to the Appellate Body impasse is of the highest importance.”

The full statements of China, the United States and the EU are available from their respective WTO Mission websites. See Statements by China at the DSB Meeting on 27 September 2021, http://wto.mofcom.gov.cn/article/meetingsandstatements/202109/20210903204327.shtml; Statements by the United States at the Meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, Geneva, September 27, 2021, https://uploads.mwp.mprod.getusinfo.com/uploads/sites/25/2021/09/Sept27.DSB_.Stmt_.as_.deliv_.fin_.public.pdf; EU Statements at Regular Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) meeting, 27 September 2021, https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/world-trade-organization-wto/104751/eu-statements-regular-dispute-settlement-body-dsb-meeting-27-september-2021_en.

In reading the summary of the proceeding and the full prepared statements of China, the U.S. and the EU, it is clear that the U.S. concern about how the WTO Members have let the dispute settlement system degenerate to the extent it has is a matter of significance and essentially ignored by most Members.

For example, GATT Articles VI, XVI and XIX and the Uruguay Round Agreements on those articles are not exceptions to WTO obligations but rather important WTO rights for all WTO Members. WTO Members are assumed to implement their rights and obligations according to their commitments. So how strange is it that the U.S. safeguard action on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic products is the first safeguard decision challenged that has been upheld.

Yet, China’s arguments and concerns with the panel report basically flow from the ability of any Member to pursue a safeguard action. Indeed, China’s desired interpretations of the agreements and Article XIX would ensure WTO Members would basically be unable to use safeguard actions. Consider China’s statement on Sept. 27, “In the past 26 years of the WTO, all of the safeguard measures challenged prior to this case had been found to violate the WTO rules. However, the panel report of DS562 has severely deviated from all these jurisprudences and substantially lowered the threshold of imposing safeguard measures. The erroneous and dangerous signal sent by this panel report to WTO members will lead to the abuse of safeguard measures and thus seriously undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system.” So the correct outcome is for all uses of the safeguard system to be found as violations of WTO obligations?

Equally interesting is the EU’s statement at the meeting. “The EU intervened as third party in this case and looks forward to commenting further at the appellate stage when the proceedings resume. In the meantime, as it is uncertain when appellate proceedings will resume, the EU notes with interest certain aspects of the approach which this panel has taken to the interpretation and application of the WTO disciplines on multilateral safeguards in this case.

“The present panel report would appear to be the first completely successful defence of a multilateral safeguard measure (subject to the pending appeal proceedings).

“Hence, the EU considers that the report of this panel and its approach to the WTO rules on multilateral safeguards deserve close attention.”

One can only respond to the EU, “Really?”

The Appellate Body has been viewed by many Members as having imposed obligations that Members had not agreed to, including in the interpretation of the Safeguard Agreement and GATT Article XIX. Yet safeguard actions are an integral part of WTO Member rights. It is not the role of panels or the Appellate to substitute their views for that of the administrators. Nor is it the role of the panels or the Appellate Body to adopt constructions of the agreements which render them nugatory in fact.

The panel, chaired by a former Chair of the Rules Negotiating Group, addressed the dispute as every panel should address trade remedy cases. Why would the outcome reached by the panel be surprising? The United States has had safeguard laws on the books for many years, has extensive experience in conducting such investigations by the U.S. International Trade Commission, and was active in the creation of the Safeguard Agreement and in Article XIX. Indeed, much of the language in the Agreement mirrors U.S. law.

So the focus of China and the implications of the statements by the EU are that dispute settlement reform for these important Members will not address the underlying concerns of the United States about overreach, about panel and AB reports not creating precedents or for the WTO membership to go back to the fundamental purpose of dispute settlement which is not for the panels or Appellate Body to create rights or obligations.

The U.S. statement also reveals the challenges the WTO is facing by having members like China whose economic systems are not market based and the urgent need for broader reforms or for countries like China to in fact become market economies.

“STATEMENT BY CHINA REGARDING THE PANEL REPORT IN THE DISPUTE: ‘UNITED STATES – SAFEGUARD MEASURE ON IMPORTS OF CRYSTALLINE SILICON PHOTOVOLTAIC PRODUCTS’ (DS562)

“• China as a WTO Member has the right to bring a matter to the attention of the DSB. Why China should want to highlight for Members that China is the first complaining party ever to lose a WTO challenge to a safeguard action – or the second, if we count China’s own previous loss in its challenge to the China-specific tires safeguard – is a matter for Beijing alone to consider.

“• But in bringing this matter forward, China should focus on what matters. First, it matters that the WTO panel found the U.S. safeguard to be consistent with WTO rules. We welcome those findings – but cannot pass without mentioning the very high cost of this victory. A thriving U.S. industry was essentially crushed by China’s massive non-market excess capacity – and this formed the factual basis for the U.S. safeguard action. So while we welcome the panel report findings, this dispute demonstrates, perversely, that WTO rules do not effectively constrain China’s damaging non-market behavior.

“• Second, it matters that China, once again, sought to use the WTO dispute settlement system as a vehicle to create new rules that would limit a Member’s ability to defend itself from China’s non-market practices. The United States has expressed grave concerns with Appellate Body interpretations that go well beyond the terms of WTO safeguards rules. But in this dispute, China sought to go even beyond those erroneous interpretations. China encouraged the panel to read Article XIX of the GATT 1994 and the Agreement on Safeguards as creating a procedural minefield with no realistic path for Members seeking to use a safeguard measure for its intended purpose. The Panel rightly rejected every single one of China’s misplaced arguments.

“• China tries to depict the uniform failure of its arguments as evidence that the Panel must have been wrong or that the Panel committed certain missteps. But the Panel’s thorough evaluation demonstrates that it is China that committed fundamental errors in its approach to this case. In particular, China attempted to read the relevant WTO safeguard provisions in a way that is inconsistent with the text of the covered agreements, and in a way that no competent authorities or no Member could ever meet in practice. That, and not some malfeasance by the Panel, is why China lost this dispute.

“• It was China’s burden to establish a prima facie case that the U.S. solar safeguard measure is inconsistent with one of the enumerated provisions of the GATT 1994 or the Agreement on Safeguards. The Panel held China to that burden. It addressed each of China’s arguments, and explained why China failed to discharge that burden in each instance. We will focus on just a few of those rejected arguments in our statement today.

“• Before the panel, China conceded that the U.S. competent authorities correctly found that the domestic industry was suffering from serious injury. That is beyond dispute, as numerous U.S. producers exited the industry, and remaining producers suffered profitability losses and declining investment. China conceded that imports were increasing from multiple sources, or that import prices were decreasing over the course of the period covered by the investigation. This is exactly the situation that GATT 1994 Article XIX and the Safeguards Agreement were designed to address. And, after a massive investigation with multiple parties and thousands of pages of evidence and arguments, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) found that increased imports caused serious injury.

“• In its challenge, China instead sought to avoid the logical implication of these facts by attacking the competent authorities. It asked the Panel to essentially conduct a new investigation and issue a new determination, uncritically accepting the views of Chinese producers and rejecting out of hand any contrary evidence and argument. The Panel correctly rejected this view of its role. In line with the terms of the Safeguards Agreement, it evaluated the report of the competent authorities and whether the report provided findings and reasoned conclusions in support of the ultimate determination. The Panel properly declined to make new findings or a new determination.

“• The Panel also correctly focused on the substance of the USITC’s findings, and rejected China’s efforts to portray Article XIX of GATT 1994 and the Safeguards Agreement as mandating formulaic cookie-cutter approaches to the analysis. You can see a good example of this correct approach in the Panel’s handling of whether the United States showed that increased imports were a result of U.S. tariff concessions. There was no dispute that the U.S. bound rate on CSPV solar products was zero, or that the binding prevented the United States from raising tariffs in response to the documented surge in imports. China nonetheless argued that the United States failed to satisfy the obligation because the USITC did not couch its findings in the exact words used in Article XIX. The Panel correctly focused on substance over form, finding that:
“he USITC identified the United States’ domestic tariff treatment of CSPV products when it observed that CSPV products covered by the safeguard measure “are provided for in subheading 8541.40.60 of the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule [and] have been free of duty under the general duty rate since at least 1987”. Although we recognize that this statement does not explicitly establish that such tariff treatment was required under the United States’ WTO obligations, we consider that the supplemental report appropriately demonstrates that this was the implication of the USITC’s statement.1

“1 US – Safeguard Measure on PV Products, para. 7.53.

“• That is exactly what a Panel should do in evaluating a safeguard measure. It should examine the totality of the competent authorities’ findings, and not fasten on quibbles over phrasing as excuses to reject their conclusions.

“• The United States is disappointed that China has now decided to press onward by appealing the Panel report in spite of overwhelming evidence of the damaging effects of China’s non-market practices, instead of focusing its energy on changing those practices that are harming workers and businesses worldwide. Indeed, it is important to recall why the United States imposed the solar safeguard in the first place. The safeguard measure serves to support our domestic industry’s efforts to adjust to import competition, after global excess solar cell and module capacity pushed our industry to the brink of extinction. Chinese producers in China and around the world are largely responsible for this excess capacity, fueled by China’s non-market practices, which are in direct contradiction to the commitments China made when it joined this organization in 2001. Meanwhile, China’s solar industry has attempted to undercut U.S. antidumping and countervailing measures on imports from China for years by shifting operations to other countries.

“• The United States will not stand idly by while China continues trying to undermine the solar safeguard measure and to continue harming U.S. solar producers and indeed market-oriented solar producers worldwide.”

Conclusion

If one needed an example of the challenges to forward movement at the WTO on dispute settlement reform, one need only look at the responses by three major players to the recent panel report on the U.S. safeguard action on imports of crystaline silicon photovoltaic products. Despite a well reasoned panel report upholding the U.S. action on surging imports that clearly devastated a domestic industry, one major Member cries foul for the panel not accepting extreme interpretations that would effectively eliminate the practical ability of Members to use safeguard actions. A second Member seems to focus on consistency with past decisions and interpretations regardless of concerns about overreach or the lack of precedents in the WTO dispute settlement system or the reasonableness of the panel report. The third Member takes the opposite position and reviews concerns about overreach, the failure of one Member to bring its economic system into conformity with market economy requirements of WTO membership, and notes the fundamental correctness of the panel’s upholding of the U.S. action.

It is hard to imagine the United States agreeing to removing its blockage of Appellate Body appointments in an environment in which major Members continue to pursue a path to undermine the purpose of dispute settlement, to ignore the need to correct the overreach problems of the past, and fail to recognize the role of dispute settlement which is not to create rights and obligations.

The WTO panel report on the U.S. safeguard case on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products — a well reasoned report but exemplifying the challenges that China’s non-market economy and policies pose to global trade

· September 20, 2021 · dispute settlement · , , , · No Comments

While the WTO’s Appellate Body (“AB”) is not presently functioning because of a lack of AB members, the panel process continues to function with reports being issued, albeit long after the intended time frame of the Dispute Settlement Understanding and complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions on in-person meetings.

On September 2, 2021, a WTO panel released its report in United States — Safeguard Measure on Imports of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products. See WT/DS562/R. The dispute was one brought by China against the U.S. safeguard action on the solar products in question. See USITC, Inv. No. TA-201-75, Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells
(Whether or not Partially or Fully Assembled into Other Products), Publ. 4739 (Nov. 2017); Proclamation 9693 of
January 23, 2018 – To Facilitate Positive Adjustment to Competition from Imports of Certain Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells (Whether or Not Partially or Fully Assembled Into Other Products) and for Other Purposes” (83 Fed. Reg. 3541 (25 January 2018).

The safeguard action similarly followed a series of antidumping and countervailing duty actions against China and then China and Taiwan and reflected a huge influx of imports from multiple countries after these multiple trade remedy actions resulted in import relief, with many producers in these other countries being affiliated with operations of Chinese producers or being companies with Chinese operations.

China did not challenge the product definition or the existence of serious injury to the domestic industry but raised a series of challenges based on its views of what is required to demonstrate increased imports from unforeseen developments and WTO obligations/concessions, what is required for the requisite causal link between imports and the serious injury, what obligations the U.S. had to review all raised possible other causes of injury and demonstrate that such causes were not attributable to increased imports and what obligations investigating countries had to supply public summaries of information gathered in a timely manner. The panel laid out the findings requested by China in paragraph 3.1 of its report (WT/DS562/R at 14-15) :

“3.1. China requests the Panel to find that the safeguard measure imposed by the United States is inconsistent with the United States’ obligations under Article XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1994 and Articles 2.1, 3, and 4.2(b) of the Agreement on Safeguards.14 Specifically, China contends that the United States acted inconsistently with:

“a. Article XIX:1(a) of the GATT 1994 and Article 3.1 of the Agreement on Safeguards because the United States failed to establish, prior to the application of the measures, that the increases in imports were the result of “unforeseen developments” and were the “effect of obligations incurred” under the GATT 1994 by the United States15;

“b. Articles 2.1, 3.1, and 4.2(b) of the Agreement on Safeguards because the United States failed to establish the required “causal link” between the increased imports and the serious injury found to exist16;

“c. Articles 2.1, 3.1, and 4.2(b) of the Agreement on Safeguards because the United States failed to ensure that injury caused by other factors was not attributed to increased imports17; and

“d. Articles 3.1 and 3.2 of the Agreement on Safeguards because the United States provided non-confidential summaries to interested parties with such delay that the parties were not provided with an adequate opportunity to exercise their right to present a defence, and because the actual public summaries were not sufficient so as to permit interested parties to reasonably present a defence.18

“14 China’s first written submission, para. 318; second written submission, para. 324.

“15 China’s panel request, pp. 2-3; first written submission, para. 293.

“16 China’s panel request, p. 2; first written submission, heading to section III(A).

“17 China’s panel request, p. 2; first written submission, heading to section III(B)(2).

“18 China’s panel request, p. 2; first written submission, para. 302.”

The panel report rejected each of the findings requested by the China.

Significance of the panel report

The WTO dispute settlement system has historically been a complainant’s forum with violations or non-compliance action found in roughly ninety percent of cases. A disproportionate number of cases have been brought against trade remedy cases. With the exception of a China-specific safeguard action by the U.S. on passenger vehicle and light truck tires, the Appellate Body had found problems with every safeguard case that was brought before it with a variety of constructions or interpretations that make use of the safeguard agreement extremely difficult if the AB’s views on requirements are correct.

While the panel in the recent report, followed the interpretations of Article XIX and the Safeguard Agreement articulated by the Appellate Body in some other cases, the panel limited its role to that envisioned in the DSU and did not substitute its views for those of the investigators where the record supported the findings made. This is as it should be and, some would argue, is a reason to leave the Appellate Body dormant until there has been major reform such that the Appellate Body has the limited role envisioned by the DSB and doesn’t routinely overturn panel findings as it has in the past.

China, just as it did in the China-specific safeguard case, raised arguments that exceeded the bounds of the text involved as the panel found in various areas including on public summaries. China also pushed for a focus on selected record information despite the voluminous information collected by the Commission. Such efforts by China were rejected by the panel.

Novel issues in the case included whether safeguard action could be taken where demand is growing rapidly and where the domestic industry has experienced some increases in capacity, production, shipments and employment. Because the U.S. industry incurred massive losses throughout the period and saw many companies go out of business or declare bankruptcy , lost substantial market share to imports and had falling prices led by falling import prices for products that producers, importers and purchasers all viewed as highly interchangeable, the U.S. International Trade Commission had found the industry seriously injured and that increased imports were a substantial cause of that injury. The panel rejected China’s arguments that some increases in the factual situation investigated meant that there was no causal link. China did not challenge that the U.S. industry was not seriously injured, and so any positive trends were not considered on the issue of whether the domestic industry was seriously injured.

The panel also looked at whether any supplemental report requested by USTR on the issue of unforeseen developments is part of the report that can be referred to understand if findings are supported by the record. The panel found that the supplemental report was part of the materials to be considered by the panel.

Larger reform issues that the panel report reveal

The United States, European Union, Japan and others have articulated reform needs at the WTO including the need to update industrial subsidy disciplines, address meaningfully state-owned and invested enterprises, reaffirm the centrality to the WTO of having all Members operate on market economy principles, and the need to stop the creation of massive global excess capacity through government policies and subsidies. While much of the focus has been on established industries — e.g., steel, aluminum, glass, cement — major problems obviously also exist in high growth sectors like solar and wind energy and are likely in many of the growth sectors of the future.

What the history of cases in the United States on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells (Whether or not Partially or Fully Assembled into Other Products) shows is that not only do rules need to be urgently updated to prohibit a range of subsidies and actions by governments and state-owned enterprises, but trade remedies need to be made more effective to give domestic industries the relief envisioned without the need for multiple rounds of cases under different agreements. In rapidly growing demand situations, losing five or six years of effective relief will mean the destruction of the domestic industry as it is unable to invest in expansion and R&D to remain competitive and, as a result rapidly declines in market relevance. This is what happened to the U.S. industry examined. If that destruction is from a range of actions that should be disciplined, the system is not functioning properly.

For all involved representing domestic industries and their workers in the U.S., EU and other markets, it is clear that way too often the system is not functioning properly. Despite the urgent need to improve the system, there is virtually no likelihood of the WTO system being made more effective this decade. Indeed, it will be surprising if there is any agreement at the 12th Ministerial to have work programs on any of the issues of importance reviewed above. Such failure to act will likely result in increased pressure to act unilaterally for those who are able or to simply abandon entire manufacturing sectors based on distortions that can’t be effectively addressed. The WTO and its Members must do better.

USTR’s Report on the WTO Appellate Body — An Impressive Critique of the Appellate Body’s Deviation from Its Proper Role

· February 14, 2020 · Uncategorized · , , , , , , · No Comments

On February 11, 2020 the U.S. Trade Representative released a Report on the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization . https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Report_on_the_Appellate_Body_of_the_World_Trade_Organization.pdf. The Report is a total of 174 pages, the report itself being 122 pages along with four appendices. The Report does not lay down what it views as the required solutions to the widespread problems that the United States has with the Appellate Body’s actions over the first twenty-five years of the WTO. But the report lays out the U.S. concerns in great detail, why the concerns reflect violations of the limited role of the Appellate Body within the WTO’s dispute settlement system and how WTO Members are harmed by the actions of the Appellate Body over time. The report goes over the issues that the U.S. has reviewed extensively at the Dispute Settlement Body and the General Council over the last two years and adds several additional concerns.

On the critical issue of Appellate Body overreach, the Report lays out examples of specific major problems for the United States in terms of the Appellate Body creating obligations or limiting rights under the WTO Agreements but identifies a number of other examples as well. It is fair to opine that the overreach issues flagged in the report constitute an absolute minimum of issues that need to be corrected for there to be an adequate restoration of rights and obligations in the view of the United States.

The appendices review concerns expressed over the last twenty years by members of Congress, various U.S. Trade Representatives and their Deputies on the continuing problem of WTO Appellate Body overreach vis-a-vis U.S. laws, regulations and practices, and actions by Congress calling for the U.S. Administration to address problems of WTO Appellate Body overreach.

In short, the Report is an extraordinary document that lays out in a comprehensive and coherent manner the U.S. view on why the WTO dispute settlement system has deviated far from its intended path. The full report is included below.

USTR-report-on-the-AB-of-the-WTO

The Report’s release at the time that the WTO Members seek a road forward on the dispute settlement system and how to restore an appellate body level of review gives all WTO Members notice that the U.S. is serious in insisting on Members coming to grips with how and why the Appellate Body has strayed so far from the limited mandate of the Dispute Settlement Understanding. Without a coming together of the Membership on the causes, one can expect that the United States will continue to block the start of selecting Appellate Body members.

Because certain major WTO Members seem unconcerned with (or are even supportive of) the violations that characterize a large number of Appellate Body decisions (at least on particular issues), it is not clear that meaningful movement and discussion will occur in the coming months in the lead up to the 12th Ministerial Conference in Kazakhstan in early June of this year. If not, resolution of the current impasse on the WTO Appellate Body is likely to drag on indefinitely.

Excerpts from the Executive Summary

The Executive Summary provides a concise review of the U.S. concerns. Excerpts are provided below (Report at 1-3):

“The United States and other free-market nations established the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) in 1995 as a forum for negotiating and implementing trade agreements. The dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO was designed to help Members resolve trade disputes arising under those agreements, without adding to or diminishing the rights and obligations to which Members had agreed. When the WTO dispute settlement system functions according to the agreed rules, it provides a vital tool to enforce Members’ WTO rights and obligations. For more than 20 years, however, the United States and other WTO Members have expressed serious concerns with the Appellate Body’s disregard for those rules.

“As detailed in this Report, the Appellate Body has repeatedly failed to apply the rules of the WTO agreements in a manner that adheres to the text of those agreements, as negotiated and agreed by WTO Members. The Appellate Body has strayed far from the limited role that WTO Members assigned to it, ignoring the text of the WTO agreements. Through this persistent overreaching, the Appellate Body has increased its own power and seized from sovereign nations and other WTO Members authority that it was not provided. For example:

“ The Appellate Body consistently ignores the mandatory deadline for deciding appeals;
“ The Appellate Body allows individuals who have ceased to serve on the Appellate Body to continue deciding appeals as if their term had been extended by WTO Members in the Dispute Settlement Body;
“ The Appellate Body has made findings on issues of fact, including issues of fact relating to WTO Members’ domestic law, although Members authorized it to address only legal issues;
“ The Appellate Body has issued advisory opinions and otherwise opined on issues not necessary to assist the WTO Dispute Settlement Body in resolving the dispute before it;
“ The Appellate Body has insisted that dispute settlement panels treat prior Appellate Body interpretations as binding precedent;
“ The Appellate Body has asserted that it may ignore WTO rules that explicitly mandate it recommend a WTO Member to bring a WTO-inconsistent measure into compliance with WTO rules; and
“ The Appellate Body has overstepped its authority and opined on matters within the authority of WTO Members acting through the Ministerial Conference, General Council, and Dispute Settlement Body.

“The Appellate Body’s persistent overreaching has also taken away rights and imposed new obligations through erroneous interpretations of WTO agreements. The Appellate Body has attempted to fill in “gaps” in those agreements, reading into them rights or obligations to which the United States and other WTO Members never agreed. These errors have favored non-market economies at the expense of market economies, rendered trade remedy laws ineffective, and infringed on Members’ legitimate policy space. For example:

“ The Appellate Body’s erroneous interpretation of the term “public body” threatens the ability of Members to counteract trade-distorting subsidies provided through SOEs, undermining the interests of all market-oriented actors;
“ The Appellate Body has intruded on Members’ legitimate policy space by essentially converting a non-discrimination obligation for regulations into a ‘detrimental impact’ test;
“ The Appellate Body has prevented WTO Members from fully addressing injurious dumping by prohibiting a common-sense method of calculating the extent of dumping that is injuring a domestic industry (“zeroing”);
“ The Appellate Body’s stringent and unrealistic test for using out-of-country benchmarks to measure subsidies has weakened the effectiveness of trade remedy laws in addressing distortions caused by state-owned enterprises in non-market economies;
“ The Appellate Body’s creation of an “unforeseen developments” test and severe causation analysis prevents the effective use of safeguards by WTO Members to protect their industries from import surges; and
“ The Appellate Body has limited WTO Members’ ability to impose countervailing duties and antidumping duties calculated using a non-market economy methodology to address simultaneous dumping and trade-distorting subsidization by non-market economies like China.

“For many years, successive Administrations and the U.S. Congress have voiced significant concerns about the Appellate Body’s disregard for the rules agreed to by WTO Members. As set forth in the Appendices to this Report, in multiple Congressional Sessions, up to and including the current Session, Senators and Representatives of both parties have voiced urgent concerns and the need for reform in numerous resolutions, reports, and statements.1

“1 See Statements by Members of the United States Congress Expressing Concerns with Appellate Body Overreaching (Appendix A1); Congressional Legislation and Reports Expressing Concern with Appellate Body
Overreaching (Appendix A2); Statements by U.S. Trade Representatives or Their Deputies on Appellate Body Overreach (Appendix B1); and Statements by the United States to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body Expressing Concerns with the Appellate Body’s Failure to Follow WTO Rules and Erroneous Interpretations of the WTO Agreements (Appendix B2).

“Unfortunately, U.S. efforts were ignored, and the problem has worsened as too many WTO Members remain unwilling to do anything to rein in this conduct. The proper functioning of the WTO Appellate Body has a disproportionate impact on the United States because more than one quarter of all disputes at the WTO have been challenges to U.S. laws or other measures. Specifically, 155 disputes have been filed against the United States, and no other Member has faced even a hundred disputes. According to some analyses, up to approximately 90 percent of the disputes pursued against the U.S. have led to a report finding that the U.S. law or other measure was inconsistent with WTO agreements. This means that, on average, over the past 25 years, the WTO has found a U.S. law or measure WTO-inconsistent between five and six times per year, every year.

“But these failings have dire consequences for U.S. interests in the WTO, and for all WTO Members, as well. The negotiating function of the WTO has atrophied as the Appellate Body has facilitated efforts by some Members to obtain through litigation what they have not achieved through negotiation; the effectiveness of WTO tools designed to address distortions by nonmarket economies has been greatly diminished; and the WTO dispute settlement system continues to lose the credibility necessary to maintain public support for the system.

“In short, the Appellate Body’s failure to follow the agreed rules has undermined not only WTO dispute settlement, but the effectiveness and functioning of the WTO more generally. Furthermore, by encouraging behavior that distorts markets, the Appellate Body has helped to make the global economy less efficient. Lasting and effective reform of the WTO dispute settlement system requires all WTO Members to come to terms with the failings of the Appellate Body.”

Additional Comments

The Executive Summary lists seven ways in which the Appellate Body has deviated from the limited role assigned to the Appellate Body within the Dispute Settlement Understanding. The last two listed have not been the focus of much of the U.S. commentary over the last several years but reflect additional concerns with the Appellate Body’s conduct. The first issue goes to decisions where the Appellate Body has ignored the clear Dispute Settlement Understanding requirement to recommend a party bring its actions into conformity with its WTO obligations where during the pendency of a dispute the Member alleged to be acting inconsistent with WTO obligations withdraws the measure in question. Report at 64-68. The second deals with situations where the Appellate Body has articulated how WTO bodies should carry out their functions even though the functioning of various WTO bodies is not an area properly before the Appellate Body. Report at 69-74. A third additional issue that is not listed in the Executive Summary but is in the full report (Report at 74-80) is “The Appellate Body Has Departed from WTO Rules by Deeming Decisions Not Made under Article IX:2 to Be Authoritative Interpretations of Covered Agreements”.

A major part of the Report is a review of selected Appellate Body decisions which have incorrectly interpreted various WTO Agreements and have thus either created obligations or reduced rights of the United States (and other Members). See pages 81 – 119. The opening paragraphs of this part of the Report summarize the concerns (page 81):

“In addition to failing to follow the rules that WTO Members have adopted, the Appellate Body has erroneously interpreted and applied numerous important WTO agreements. The Appellate Body has overreached on substantive issues, engaged in impermissible gap-filling, and read into
the WTO agreements rights or obligations that are not there.

“The texts of the covered agreements result from extensive negotiations among sovereign nations and autonomous customs territories, and reflect differing negotiating objectives and positions. It is often possible to reach agreement on only one particular obligation or discipline while being unable to reach agreement on any obligation or discipline even in a related area. As such, ‘gaps’ in the text of a covered agreement may simply reflect a situation where there was a limit upon what negotiators could agree. WTO Members have not agreed to delegate to WTO adjudicative bodies the task of filling in gaps in the covered agreements, and it is critical for WTO
adjudicators to respect these limits.

“Despite this, the Appellate Body has expanded its own power and attempted to substitute for negotiators to re-write, reduce or supplement the agreed text. Among other interpretive errors, the Appellate Body has engaged in impermissible gap-filling and read into the text of the covered agreements obligations or rights that are not present in the text. This conduct is inconsistent with the Appellate Body’s role and adds to or diminishes Members’ rights and obligations, contrary to Articles 3.2 and 19.2 of the DSU.”

Five examples are reviewed at length, including four that address issues from trade remedy agreements (Subsidies and Countervailing Measures; Anti-Dumping; Safeguards) and one that involves the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement. Moreover, four additional decisions are referenced in footnote 195:

“195 For example, this Report does not discuss the dispute US – Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act Of 2000, in which the Appellate Body’s interpretation of the Subsidies Agreement in effect created a new category of prohibited subsidies that was neither negotiated nor agreed to by WTO Members; or other examples, such as US – Gambling, US – Cotton, US – FSC.”

The problem of the Appellate Body (or panels) creating obligations or diminishing rights not contained in the various agreements of the WTO is not limited to these nine cases where the U.S. has raised serious concerns but has included concerns raised by many trading partners. In a paper prepared for the Asia Society Policy Institute in early 2018, I reviewed excerpts from various Dispute Settlement Body meetings where various WTO Members raised concerns about creating obligations or diminishing rights. The paper is enclosed below.

Final-Asia-Society-Paper-re-dispute-settlement

Conclusion

The fundamental questions facing the WTO membership on the dispute settlement system are whether Members will agree to conform the dispute settlement system to the limited role envisioned at its creation in 1995 and restore balance to the Agreements that were negotiated. The United States has laid out its case that a limited role for the Appellate Body was all that was intended and all that the U.S. supports. Many Members have seen the deviation from the Dispute Settlement Understanding but have looked the other way or even encouraged the expansion of the deviation for a variety of reasons, not least of which is achieving through disputes what wasn’t achieved through negotiations. Without a resolution acceptable to the United States, the WTO dispute settlement system will struggle to regain its full measure of legitimacy and there will be no restoration of an Appellate Body.