International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Sign in Subscribe

Julia Qin

Negotiation History and Interpretation of WTO Accession Protocols

As indicated in my previous post, South Korea, a third party in the Rare Earths appeal, advocated referencing negotiation history in the interpretation of Paragraph 11.3 of China’s Accession Protocol. Para. 2.7.7of the AB Report reads in part: In Korea's view, the interpretation pursuant

A Lost Opportunity: Thoughts on the Result of China’s Appeal in Rare Earths

China lost its appeal in Rare Earths last week. The main issue on appeal: the availability of GATT XX exceptions to paragraph 11.3 of China’s Accession Protocol (AP), which contains China’s WTO-plus commitment to eliminate export duties and does not refer to GATT XX exceptions. This may

The U.S. “Preemptive” Appeal in China-Rare Earths

Following up on Simon’s last post, I want to raise a few questions on the US appeal. In "U.S. Files 'Preemptive' Appeal Against WTO Ruling on Chinese Rare Earths", BNA WTO Reporter, April 10, 2014, Daniel Pruzin reports: The U.S. has filed a

The Irrationality of the WTO Export Duty Regime: Availability of GATT Article XX and Beyond

The Panel decision in China-Raw Materials reveals an utterly irrational aspect of the system: the ad hoc rules on export duties imposed on a handful of acceding members are effectively the most "sacred" rules of the WTO, in that they are permanent, not amendable, and not entitled to

The Appellate Body Report in DS379 (US-AD/CVD)

In its latest report, the Appellate Body made several important rulings under the SCM Agreement. Simon has already posted on the double-remedy issue. A while ago, I posted on the Panel report in this case, asking whether the Panel had painted a wrong picture of China's economy. The

The China wind power WTO complaint - failure to translate

The US complaint (DS419) also includes a new claim under the China Accession Protocol: China has not made available a translation of the measures at issue into one or more official languages of the WTO. As part of its accession commitments on transparency, China agreed to make such translations available

Did iPhone really add $2 billion to U.S. trade deficit with China?

Here is a very interesting article on trade statistics and trade deficit. Click here According to the author, "if trade statistics were adjusted to reflect the actual value contributed to a product by different countries, the size of the U.S. trade deficit with China—$226.88 billion, according

Is there something wrong with this picture? (as painted by the Panel in US-AD/CVD)

I have finally finished reading the Panel report in DS379. What an amazing decision! The Panel has effectively declared the second largest economy in the world as a completely distorted one for the purpose of the SCM. The following are some key points of the decision, and their possible implications:

Panel Report on China – Publications/AV: New Jurisprudence on WTO-Plus Obligations

The Panel Report, released on August 12, has been briefly discussed on this blog (here and here). Among its many interesting aspects, the Panel report is the first to interpret a major “WTO-plus” obligation of China – the trading rights obligation. Almost half of the pages in the Panel’s findings

Rethinking WTO subsidy rules: Should the SCM have an escape clause?

Call it the “subsidy war” or “domestic policy space”, as you wish. The world has dramatically changed over the last three months: governments from the United States to just about every other country have rushed to rescue their economies by pumping trillions of dollars into their financial and manufacturing sectors.