A Turning Point of Non-Market Economy : On the Individual Duty Treatment of the WTO in the Fasteners Anti-Dumping Case between European Communities and China

For a long time, Chinese export enterprises were afflicted by the vague WTO rules of non-market economy under anti-dumping investigations. On 15 July 2011, the Dispute Settlement Body (“DSB”) of the WTO published the report of the Appellate Body on the dispute called “European Communities — Definitive Anti-dumping Measures on Certain Iron or Steel Fasteners from China” (DS397). In this article, it is to reason four questions, i.e., (i) the scope of article 9(5) of the Basic Anti-dumping Regulation of the European Union; (ii) whether sampling as described in the second sentence of article 6.10 constitutes the only exception to the principle laid down in the first sentence; (iii) whether a state may be seen as a producer unless individual exporters can demonstrate their independence from the state; (iv) interpretation of the word “impracticable” under articles 9.2 and 6.10, the DSB finally concluded that the EU acted inconsistently with articles 6.10 and 9.2 of the Anti-dumping Agreement with respect to article 9(5) of the Basic AD Regulation of EU, which refused to give each known NME exporter or producer individual duty treatment. To some extent, this case might clarify the NME issue in the WTO, change the defective situation, and be considered as a milestone for the promotion of justice under a free and rule-oriented multilateral trade system