Publisher's Synopsis
Although the U.S. has complied with adverse rulings in many past World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes, there are currently 14 cases in which rulings have not yet been implemented or the U.S. has acted and the dispute has not been fully resolved. Under WTO dispute settlement rules, a WTO Member will generally be given a reasonable period of time to comply. While the Member is expected to remove the offending measure by the end of this period, compensation and temporary retaliation are available if the Member has not acted or not taken adequate remedial action by this time. Either disputing party may request a compliance panel if there is disagreement over whether a Member has complied in a case. Nine unresolved cases involve trade remedies, including a long-standing dispute with Japan over a provision of U.S. antidumping (AD) law and another with various WTO Members over the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000. The Offset Act was repealed as of October 2005, but remains the target of sanctions by the European Union (EU) and Japan due to continued payments to U.S. firms authorized under the repealer (P.L. 109-171). Six of these cases involve "zeroing," a practice under which the Department of Commerce (DOC), in calculating dumping margins in AD proceedings, disregards non-dumped sales. The practice was challenged by the EU (DS294/DS350), Japan (DS322), and Mexico (DS344), resulting in broad prohibitions on its use. The U.S. administratively resolved one aspect of DS294 by abandoning zeroing in original AD investigations, but has yet to comply fully either in this case or in DS350, 322, or 344, leading the EU (in DS294) and Japan to request the WTO to authorize sanctions. Under memoranda signed by the U.S. with each complainant February 2012, however, U.S.-requested arbitration of the two sanctions proposals has been suspended while the U.S. makes new dumping determinations in challenged AD proceedings using a methodology finalized in March 2012 that eliminates zeroing in later stages of AD cases. The sanctions arbitrations will be terminated once implementation of the new determinations is complete. A compliance panel report in Mexico's zeroing dispute has not yet been publicly circulated. The U.S. was expected to comply by March 2012, in Brazil's zeroing challenge (DS382), but it is unclear if recent U.S. action will resolve the dispute. A July 2012, deadline is in place in the dispute with Vietnam (DS404). The U.S. is expected to comply by April 2012, in China's challenge to U.S. countervailing duties imposed on Chinese goods (DS379). Panel and Appellate Body reports were adopted in the EU's successful challenge of U.S. aircraft subsidies March 2012 (DS353) ("Boeing" case), and the U.S. is expected to comply by September 2012. In Brazil's dispute over U.S. cotton subsidies (DS267), Congress repealed a WTO-inconsistent cotton program in 2006 (P.L. 109-171), but other programs were also successfully challenged and the U.S. was found not to have fully complied. The U.S. later made statutory and administrative changes to the export credit guarantee program faulted in the case. While the WTO has authorized Brazil to retaliate, the U.S. and Brazil signed an agreement in June 2010 aimed at permanently resolving the dispute. It includes Brazil's pledge not to impose sanctions during the life of the agreement and foresees possible legislative resolution of the dispute in the 2012 farm bill. The U.S. and Antigua have been consulting on outstanding issues in Antigua's challenge of U.S. online gambling restrictions (DS285); compensation agreements between the U.S. and various WTO Members in exchange for U.S. withdrawal of its WTO gambling commitments, an action taken to resolve the case, will not enter into effect until issues with Antigua are settled. Also unsettled are long-pending disputes with the EU over a music copyright law (DS160) and a statutory trademark provision affecting property confiscated by Cuba (DS
