After a bit of a lull, three potentially interesting new WTO complaints were filed recently. Here's a brief rundown.
First up is a complaint by India focusing on various U.S. state renewable energy programs that have domestic content requirements. Are there any creative new defenses that can be offered for these kinds of programs, or is the result a foregone conclusion?
Next is a complaint by the U.S. against Chinese domestic agriculture subsidies. Since trade negotiations don't seem to be able to address these subsidies, I'm happy to see trade litigation take it on. This is from the complaint:
China provides domestic support to agricultural producers that appears to be inconsistent with China's obligations pursuant to Articles 3.2, 6.3, and 7.2(b) of the Agriculture Agreement because the level of domestic support provided exceeds China's commitment level of "nil" specified in Section I of Part IV of China's Schedule CLII. In particular, China's domestic support in favor of agricultural producers, expressed in terms of its current Total Aggregate Measurement of Support ("Total AMS"), appears to exceed China's final bound commitment level in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 on the basis of domestic support provided to producers of, inter alia, wheat, Indica rice, Japonica rice, and corn. In each of these years, China appears to provide domestic support in excess of its product-specific de minimis level of 8.5 percent for each product.
King & Spalding has a whole blog devoted to Chinese subsidies -- it would be great if subsidies from other countries were being monitored as well.
And finally, we have Ukraine and Russia battling over transit restrictions on Ukrainian trade that goes through Russia. This is from Ukraine's complaint:
The restrictions on traffic in transit that the Russian Federation has recently adopted and implemented following Ukraine's decision to start the implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union on 1 January 2016 constitute measures inconsistent with the Russian Federation's WTO obligations.
Ukrainian exports to countries in Central/Eastern Asia and Caucasus have been significant and growing. In order to reach those markets, most Ukrainian exports have traditionally transited from the territory of Ukraine through the territory of the Russian Federation to those countries
Since the measures at issue are applied to Ukrainian products, trade to countries in Central/Eastern Asia and Caucasus in January-June2016 decreased by 35,1 % in comparison with the same months of 2015.
