Research On Best Information Available In WTO Anti-dumping Agreement

Best Information Available plays an important role in anti-dumping investigation. It helps the Investigation Authority overcome the lack of information and accomplish the investigation before deadline. BIA remains quite popular among the Investigation Authorities. It grows from one simple and general article into a set of elaborate rules which tend to be more reasonable and practical. However, it is being mis-used as punishment by the Authorities more and more frequently as the competition of the international trade becomes fiercer.This article reviews the history and practice of BIA’s development and discusses the legal logic behind. This article also brings up some reasonable advice of amending BIA which will make a better balance of justice and efficiency in anti-dumping investigation. There are4chapters in this article.The first chapter introduces the development of BIA, during which it grew from crude to intricate, with an increasing binding force. It also elaborates the BIA in WTO Anti-dumping Agreement.The second chapter analyzes the legal logic and value of BIA. BIA enhances the efficiency of anti-dumping investigation in2ways:first pushing the interested party to cooperate by using adverse facts; second helping the authority to decide when the necessary information is not available. However, the authority tends to use it to punish the interested party. By comparing with Adverse Inference, this chapter.explains the legitimacy of using BIA as punishment.The third chapter introduces the domestic BIA of USA and EU and reviews the domestic practice in those two members. It could be inferred from the statistics, especially the statistics of USA that there exists a trend of abusing BIA.The fourth chapter puts forward some advices in amending BIA including establishing the principle of prudence, defining the "cooperation" to restrain the use of BIA, regulating the selection of information available, imposing heavier obligation to reason on authority. And this chapter also advises the WTO Rules Division to publish guidelines to guide the practice of BIA.