The Discretion Of The Anti-dumping Law And Practice Research

Contrary to the theory of skepticism, this thesis tries to scrutinize the discretions in antidumping laws and practices (AD for short hereinafter except otherwise expressed) to find where they are penetrated, what they are functioned, how they are wielded and how far they are extended for the purposes of identifying the traps of them in AD investigations for the respondents from China to attack back the limitless and arbitrary discretions of the investigators and terribly complicated AD procedures.Focusing on the LTFV investigation (limited by the purpose and length, the thesis does not deal with the injury and causing), the whole thesis is composed of three sections except the Introduction and Conclusion. The Introduction clarifies the motives and purposes of this thesis. Section one generally surveys on the discretion in AD from two aspects: one is the forms of the discretions in AD and the other is the characteristics of the discretions in AD. The thesis states that the discretions in AD penetrate widely and deeply not only into the legislative activities but also into the application of antidumping laws, i.e. antidumping investigation practices. The thesis found that the characteristics of the discretions in AD are mixed, on one hand, they are reasonable to some extent because there is no laws, there is no discretion; but on the other hand, they are often wielded and exerted arbitrary, capricious or otherwise not in accordance with law partially because they are supervised leniently.Section two makes a scrutiny in the discretion in the findings and determinations for the like products and deciding the ordinary course of trade, slection of surrogate country and fair comparison between NV and EP/CEP. In categorizing like product, most countries will depart with discretion from the criteria set in ADA for the purpose of grant favorable protection to the domestic producers; in deciding the ordinary course of trade, the investigating authorities may changes the standard at their discretion; in adjusting the NV. the investigating authorities are more free from any confinements. Section alsoreviews the discretions in calculating the Export Price and Constructed Export Price, only to find that EP and CEP are generally chosen at the discretion of the authority. Just as adjusting the NV, the investigating authorities are very free make adjustments.Section three reviews the discretions in comparing the Export Price and Constructed Export Price and in selecting of calculation methodologies. The investigating authorities are more preferred to use the Weighted-Average NV to the EP or CEP of respective transaction for it is easier for them to obtains higher dumping margin by the methodology of Zeroing, which is always under the fire of many countries.In Conclusion, the author summaries that the purpose to grant discretion in AD to the investigating authorities are not only for offsetting the loophole and ambiguity of antidumping laws and regulations or to treat any individual respondent with justice and fairness, but to exercise the protectionalism policies in international trade. However, the discretions in AD are not absolutely unfathomable. Mastery is ever undefeatable.