WTO Committees Provide Option to Settle Trade Issues, Lawyers Say

World Trade Organization committees could offer a path beyond the Dispute Settlement Body to settle trade-related issues, Baker McKenzie lawyers said in a Nov. 13 blog post. For instance, the Anti-Dumping Practices and Subsidies and Countervailing Measures committees offer a forum to settle "practical and strategic issues" faced by companies engaged in international trade, the post said.

Both of these committees discuss how AD/CVD measures are applied and "can issue guidelines, interpretative notes, and case studies, that can indicate how a certain provision should be interpreted or applied," the law firm said. The post laid out examples of AD and SCM committee guidance, including on the treatment of captive goods, which are goods traded within the same company, in AD cases.

The European Commission excludes captive use data in determining domestic industry injury but includes it in other cases. "Such diverging practices create uncertainties and make it difficult for companies to comply with the rules," the post said. "An agreement at the level of the AD Committee on how to treat captive goods or goods under inward processing would enhance predictability and improve the functioning of the anti-dumping instrument."

Using WTO committees involves a similar procedure to the WTO negotiating function, since participation is reserved for members, barring access to businesses. As a result, the "first step is to lay out the problem and the preferred solution in a simple and convincing way." The second step is to find a nation to "champion the discussion" at the committee. The last step would be to "ensure that other Members are briefed on the topic and are able to express their (preferably aligned) views."