Administered Protection in the GATT/WTO System

All dogs have fleas, therefore all dogs have legs with which to scratch. Similarly, any government committed to a generally open trade policy will be pestered for ‘import relief’ by one industry or another – usually on grounds that its situation is ‘exceptional.’ It follows that governments will have procedures for fielding and managing such pressures. This paper examines how WTO member governments have used safeguards, antidumping, and other instruments of “administered” or “contingent” protection in the management of domestic pressures for protection. Three conclusions emerge: 1. These provisions have been extensively used but at the same time have remained under discipline. Application of the restrictions they allow has been minimal relative to the liberalization the GATT/WTO system has supported. 2. Reform-minded developing country governments have employed these rules skillfully to support their own liberalization programs. 3. Antidumping is perhaps the classic example of a pragmatically successful flexibility instrument with pretensions – but no more than pretensions – to a real economic rational