A Study On The Entities Applying For Trade Remedy Investigation

Trade remedy is an aggregation of series of measures, including anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures, taken by the participants of international trade to protect themselves’ trade benefits, which has been existing for more than a century. The enactment of rules and regulations of the World Trade Organization(WTO) makes the trade remedy measures codified and was adopted by more than 90 percent of the countries and territories in the world, maintains the order and promotes the development of international trade activities.Trade remedy investigation, according to WTO regulations, can be initiated by the competent authority itself or an application filed by domestic industry of an import country injured by unfair trade activities. In the case of initiation by application, the problem whether applicant is qualified emerges. This article, from the perspective of defining domestic industry and combining with the relevant cases of WTO, will discuss the qualification of the applicant in trade remedy investigation, analyze the ways and defects of defining applicant, and put forward some suggestions for improvement.This article is divided into four chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the concept of trade remedy and the initiation rules of trade remedy investigation of anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures from the perspective of WTO legal framework, in which underlines the function of applicant. Applicant, whose qualification often becomes a key point among parties in a dispute, is a key to the procedures of trade remedy.The second chapter is the main and core part of this article. This chapter analyzes the question of defining applicant from the perspective of domestic industry, makes an elaboration on general rules of defining domestic industry, its relationship with domestic industry and factors of defining trade remedy applicant. This article is also willing to provide a new perspective of defining domestic industry from the concept of relevant market in anti-trust law.The third chapter has a close relation with the second chapter and is mainly about general classification rules of like product and its impact on defining applicant entity in trade remedy. Like product is a key point in defining domestic industry, so it is also significant to applicant of trade remedy.Based on the three chapters, the fourth chapter presents some discussion on improvements of rules of trade remedy applicant, including a summary of defects of standing rules and disputes in practice and some suggestion for the improvement thereof. According to the three foregoing chapters, there is no rule on defining trade remedy applicant in the laws or regulations of WTO or China. Therefore, we should enhance our perception on applicant from the perspective of domestic industry and like product.