G/SG/Q1/AFG/2  
13 December  2019 
(19-8628) Page: 1/4 
Committee on Safeguards  Original:  English  
 
  
NOTIFICATION OF LAWS AND REGULATIONS UNDER  
ARTICLE  12.6 OF THE AGREEMENT  
REPLIES TO QUESTION S POSED BY  THE UNITED STATES1  
REGARDING  THE NOTIFICATION OF AFGH ANISTAN2 
The following communication, dated 11 December 2019 , is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Afghanistan . 
 
_______________  
 
 
We would like to thank United States of America for posting questions in this regard and the answers 
by Afghanistan are stated as below:  
 
Question 1  
Please clarify whether the World Trade Organization Agreement on Safeguards 
(hereinafter "WTO  SG Agreement") is self -implementing in Afghanistan's law . In case of 
a discrepancy between the WTO SG Agreement on the Law on Safeguards, which holds 
precedence?  
Reply  
The Law on safeguard is very much in compliance with WTO principles and WTO SG agreement, 
however, if there is a discrepancy between the WTO SG agreement and the Law on safeguard, based 
on Afghanistan's legal codification system the Safeguard Agreement shal l hold the precedence.  
Question 2  
Article 3.1 of the Law on Safeguards defines a "safeguard measure" as "a measure 
imposed on investigated products for protection of domestic industry" . Please explain 
how this definition is consistent with Article 5.1 of t he WTO SG Agreement, which states 
that a Member shall apply safeguard measures "only to the extent necessary to prevent 
or remedy serious injury and to facilitate adjustment"?  
Reply  
Article 3.1 of law does not define the safeguard measures as it just reflects the definition of the term 
of safeguards, therefore, aimed at conformity of article 5.1of the WTO SG agreement please check 
article 6 of law by means it is clearly in line with s afeguard measures that "only to the extent 
necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury and to facilitate" . 
 
1 G/SG/Q1/AFG/1 . 
2 G/SG/N/1/AFG/1 . G/SG/Q1/AFG/2  
- 2 - 
  Question 3  
Article 5 of the Law on Safeguards indicates that this law will apply both to WTO -Member 
countries and non -WTO Member countries alike . Please clarify whether a safeguard 
measure imposed following an investigation on imports from non -WTO member countries 
or territories will also apply to WTO -Member countries.  
Reply  
Article 5 of the law on safeguard, the measures will be imposed in the products under investigation 
which are imported from WTO members and in accordance to WTO SG Agreement as well as 
Article  XIX GATT1994, this covers the scope of Article 2.2 WTO SG, which states that "Safeguard 
measures shall be applied to a product being i mported irrespective of its source" . 
Therefore, the safeguard measures imposed following an investigation on imports from non -WTO 
members will also apply to WTO member countries.  
Question 4  
Article 8.2 of the Law on Safeguards states that the General Direc torate of International 
Trade ("Authority") would "prepare safeguards investigations application form" . Please 
explain whether this simply refers to the form that a petitioning industry would file under 
Article 14 of the Law on Safeguards, or whether it al so means that the Authority itself 
may prepare petitions and then conduct investigations and make determinations based 
on the petitions it prepared.  
Reply  
The Authority will prepare a well formatted form as per their work scope which covers the required 
fields on the information which is needed for the purpose of investigation, as an administrative 
procedure, this form will be prepared by the authority and will be submitted to the petition industry 
once an application is received.  
The petition industry will  only apply for investigation through an official communication but the 
investigation will be conducted by the authority in accordance to Article 3 of Safeguard agreement, 
and the form so called "application form for investigation" will be prepared by auth ority and it is 
considered to be the first step of filling an application.  
Question 5  
Article 8.3 of the Law on Safeguards notes that the Authority is charged with publishing 
safeguard investigation notices, while Articles 22 and 27 discuss the notificatio n of 
provisional and final safeguard determinations in widely circulated media as well as the 
Authority's website . Please clarify where and in what form announcements related to 
safeguard investigations initiations will be published (e.g., name official ga zette, national 
newspapers, or website) . Also, please clarify if such publication will include the initiation 
of safeguards investigations.  
Reply  
Based on Article 8.3 of law on safeguards, the authority will publish the initiation of a safeguard 
investigat ion on the website  https://moci.gov.af  also national official Gazette  and based on 
Article  22 of the law on safeguard the authority will publish its final determination on safeguard 
investigation both in abovementioned website and national newspapers which are widely circulated 
and available.  
In case of availability of a trade journal the final investigation will also be published in the trade 
journal. The method of publication and list of certain would be  determined in the relevant procedures 
for this law.  G/SG/Q1/AFG/2  
- 3 - 
  Question 6  
With regard to Article 10 of the Law on Safeguards, to what extent does the Safeguards 
Board for Domestic Industries ("Board") have the ability to change (i.e., increase, 
decrease, lengthen, s horten, or decide not to impose) the level or amount of a safeguard 
measure as recommended by the Authority?  
Reply  
To what extent the Board will have the ability to change (i.e increase, decrease, lengthen, shorten 
or decide not to impose) a safeguard meas ures will be determined in the relevant procedure for the 
law on safeguard.  
Question 7  
Please clarify whether the "procedures" noted throughout the Law on Safeguards (e.g., 
Article  8.10, Article 10.1, Article 11.5, and Article 19.3) have already been devel oped . If 
so, please identify when the procedures will be notified to the WTO Committee on 
Safeguards for review by Members . If the procedures have not yet been developed, please 
clarify the expected timeframe in which the procedures will be developed and 
subsequently notified.  
Reply  
The relevant regulations/procedures intended for law on safeguards has not yet been developed, 
the ministry of commerce and industries of Afghanistan will finalize the procedure for law on 
safeguard, once the trade remedies unit  so far called the "Board" is established and will subsequently 
notify the relevant procedure based in its notification obligations.  
Question 8  
Article 14.1 of the Law on Safeguards states that "the owner of a domestic industry, or 
his legal representative, and interested parties" may submit an application for a safeguard 
investigation . Please indicate the types of "interested parties" that would be eligible to 
file an application (e.g., would a single firm in an industry comprised of many firms be a 
proper party for filing a petition?).  
Question 9  
Article 20.2 of the Law on Safeguards states with regard to maintenance of the safeguard 
proceeding r ecord that "Confidential documents are exempted from this provision" . 
Please clarify whether the Authority will request non -confidential summaries of 
confidential information be placed on the proceeding record per Article 3.2 of the WTO SG 
Agreement such t hat interested parties have the ability, as required by Article 3.1 of the 
WTO SG Agreement, to respond to the evidence and views of all parties during the course 
of the safeguard investigation.  
Question 10  
Article 10.5 of the Law on Safeguards states that  one responsibility of the Board is to 
"adopt provisional and definitive safeguard measures" . Article 21 of the Law on 
Safeguards indicates the situations in which the Board will adopt provisional measures, 
while Article 25 of the Law on Safeguards indicat es that the Authority, and not the Board, 
makes the decision on application of final measures . Based on this:  
• Please clarify whether the Authority or the Board makes the ultimate decision 
on whether or not a safeguard measure will be imposed;  
• Please clarif y how this decision is notified to the Customs General Directorate 
to begin collection of any safeguard tariff ; and G/SG/Q1/AFG/2  
- 4 - 
  • Please clarify whether the effective date of any measure is the date of decision, 
the date the notification is made to the Customs General D irectorate, or the 
date the decision is published in a gazette or on the Authority's website.  
Replies 8, 9, 10  
 
All the issues, related to determination of interested parties, how to deal with confidential and 
non-confidential information, the decision making steps and method and the effective date for 
imposition of the measures will be determined in the relevant regulations/procedures of the law on 
safeguard measures.  
__________