A Study On The Requirements Of "Increased Imports" For Safeguard Measures Under The WTO

"Increased import" is the prerequisite of the application of a safeguard measure. The regulation on "increased import" is so simple that it results in much difficulty in the specific cases involving safeguard measures under the WTO. To better understand the rules of the Agreement on Safeguards (AS) to guide the judicial practice, this paper gives an overall examination on the legal issues of the application of "increased import".The paper uses three main research methods. One is the case-study method. It analyzes all the related cases of safeguard measures under the WTO instead of sticking to the rules of AS. Secondly, the paper imports charts, one of the economic tools, from economics to simplify the complex legal concepts and problems. Thirdly, the paper compares the regulations of other internal and international legislations while analyzing the rules of safeguard measures under the WTO.It is the first time for the paper to do the special study on "increased import" both at home and abroad. The paper conceives the theoretic structure of "increased import" and clarifies the ambiguity for the judicial practice under the safeguard mechanism. In both theory and practice, it makes research on a series of legal problems of "increased import". They include the following aspects: (1) the history, nature and types of "increased import"; (2) the ways and standards to evaluate "increased import"; (3) the period of investigation; (4) the definition of "domestic industry" and the principle of non-discrimination; (5) the relationship between "unforeseen development", "increased import", "serious injury or threat" and "causal link". Taking into consideration the above points, the author provides several feasible suggestions in regards to how China should react to protect its legal rights and interests on safeguards.