A Study On The Implementation Mechanism Of WTO Dispute Settlement Body Decisions In The United States

Under the WTO legal regime, the Member States are obliged under internationallaw to implement the decisions made by the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO(hereinafter as "DSB decisions") promptly and effectively. However, it is a domesticlaw issue as to how to implement the decision. Being the most frequently sued country,the Unite States has the most extensive experience in implementing the DSBdecisions, and has established a comparatively complete legal regime for such matter.The implementation regime of the United States is mainly based on the UruguayRound Agreement Act of1994, with the involvement of governmental authoritiessuch as the President, Congressional Committees, Department of Commerce, judicialdepartments and customs etc. Overall, the United States has been properlyimplementing the adverse DSB decisions in most cases, but in the event that thedecision was in relation to major economic and industrial interests, the United Stateswould utilize various procedural methods to delay or flaw the implementation, ordeny implementation. Usually these methods are not to directly violate the rules, butto take advantages of the loopholes and room of the WTO dispute settlementmechanism and the WTO decision per se in order to protect the domestic industriesand justify its trade protectionism.Current academic works on DSB decisions mainly focus on the Understanding onrules and procedures governing the settlement of disputes and the multilateral implementation mechanism under WTO system, but the domestic laws of memberstates in relation to the implementation are rarely mentioned. Representative works inthis field include World Trade Organization (WTO) Decisions and Their Effect in U.S.Law by Professor Jeanne J. Grimmett and Foreign Policy or Foreign Commerce?:WTO Accessions and the U.S. Separation of Powers by Professor Lawrence M. Reichetc..This thesis focuses on anti-dumping and countervailing, which is a hot sector intrade disputes, for the purpose of analyzing the implementation mechanism of DSBdecisions in the United States based on the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of1994.This thesis has five chapters, and the structure is as follows:Chapter One introduces the overview of the implementation of DSB decisions inthe United States. This chapter summarizes the overall situation and characteristics inrespect of the implementation of DSB decisions in the United States.Chapter Two discusses the implementation of DSB decisions involving laws.This chapter discusses the domestic legal effect of DSB decisions. Since the UruguayRound Agreements are categorized as executive agreements that arenon-self-executing, they have no direct legal effect under the domestic law of theUnited States. This Chapter also introduces the coordination mechanism betweenthe state and federal legislation.Chapter Three discusses the implementation of DSB decisions involvingadministrative measures. This chapter focuses on the implementation mechanism inrespect of administrative regulations and practice, and specific anti-dumping andcountervailing measures, and summarizes the characteristics of the same. To ensurethat the implementation complies with domestic interests, the Uruguay RoundAgreement Act provides detailed implementation procedures respectively for generalregulation and practice as well as specific anti-dumping and countervailing measures,both led by the Trade Represetative. This Chapter also discusses the impact of judicialreview to the implementation of DSB decisions.Chapter Five provides comments on and summary of the implementation of DSBdecisions in the United States by analyzing typical cases (United States—Laws, Regulations and Methodology for Calculating Dumping Margins (Zeroing)(DS294)and United States—Definitive Anti-Dumping and Countervailing Duties on CertainProducts from China (DS379)). During the implementation of these two cases, UnitedStates have utilized varies of measure to delay or distort the implementation.Chapter Six provides suggestions in respect of the establishment of the WTOdecision implementation system in China from domestic law perspective, with theview that such system should comply with the international law obligations and becapable of protecting the domestic industrial benefits to the greatest extent. Thesuggestion mainly covers improvements with respect to legislation procedures forlaws and regulations.