Uses and Misuses of Anti-dumping Provisions in World Trade: A Cross Country Perspective - Tapa dura

...It is a myth that the GATT/WTO system is only about free trade. Plenty of exemptions to free trade principles are permitted. The anti-dumping agreement is one such exemption. The GATT/WTO system does not prohibit dumping, defined as exporting a product at lower than its 'normal' value...and thus goes the Introduction (by Bibek Debroy) to this important volume on the subject. ""...Where do we go from where?...the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) contemplates nothing beyond clarifying and improving disciplines. There is consensus across all five papers that this is hardly enough. More substantial change is needed in the anti-dumping agreement. There is perhaps consensus across all five papers that the anti-dumping agreement needs to be dumped, although there is lack of precision about what should be done about Article VI in that eventuality. Given the political economy within the WTO, this first-best solution is unlikely to materialise. But as a second-best, there is enough ammunition in these five papers for the argument that one needs much more than mere clarification and improvement.

Bibek Debroy is the director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, the consulting editor for "Business Standard," and the author and editor of numerous books and articles. Debashis Chakraborty is a research associate at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies and a coeditor of "Beyond the Transition Phase of WTO."