WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/GC/92 
5 July 2005 
 (05-2930) 
General Council  
  
 
 
RULES OF ORIGIN HARMONIZATION WORK PROGRAMME 
 
Implications of the Harmonized Rules of Origin for other WTO Agreements
 
 
Communication from the Chairman of the General Council  
 
  Members will recall that the harmonization work programme for non-preferential rules of origin was launched in July 1995 in the Committee on Rules of Origin, and that – due to the sheer 
number and complexity of the technical issues involve d – we have been unable to conclude this work 
even though the deadline for its completion has been extended several times .  Since July 2002, when 
the Committee on Rules of Origin forwarded 94 core policy issues to the General Council for 
discussion and decision, this matter has been taken up  at the General Council level.  The substantive 
work has, since then, been pursued in informal consultations conducted by the Chairperson of the 
Committee on Rules of Origin, at th e request, and on behalf of, the Ch air of the General Council.  As 
Members are also aware, we are now  facing another deadline of July 2005 for completion of this 
work.     At the 15 February meeting of the General Council, the General Council Chair – on the basis 
of a report and advice received from the Chair of the CRO following consultations with Members of 
her Committee – announced the following steps as a purely practical means to advance the work on 
the harmonization work programme, in view of the tight deadline Members were facing:   First
, that he would request the Chairpersons of the Committees on Anti-Dumping Practices, 
on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and on Safeguards to take up the "implications" 
issue in consultations on his behalf with Members in their Committees as soon as possible 
with a view to addressing the following questions , keeping in mind the July 2005 deadline for 
completing negotiations on the 94 core policy issues that was agreed by the General Council 
at its meeting in July 2004: 
  (i) whether the harmonized rules of origin  should be applied to the Agreements on 
Implementation of Article VI of the GA TT 1994, on Subsidies and Countervailing 
Measures and on Safeguards;  and  
  (ii) whether the harmonized rules of orig in should be applied to the problem of 
circumvention of trade remedy measures; 
 
 Second
, that he would request the Chairpersons of these Committees to report on the outcome 
of their consultations to the Chair of th e General Council before July 2005;  and 
  Third
, that he would request the Chairperson of the Committee on Rules of Origin to continue 
consultations on the 94 core policy issues on his behalf. 
 WT/GC/92 
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  The Chair also stated that delegations would have an opportunity to hear a full report on the 
progress of the harmonization work programme as a whole at the July General Council meeting. 
  In this connection, I am attaching for the information of all delegations a communication, 
dated 28 June 2005, that has been addressed to me  by the Chairpersons of the Committees on Anti-
Dumping Practices, on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and on Safeguards reporting on their 
consultations.
1 
 
                                                      
1 Reproduced in the Annex.  WT/GC/92 
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 ANNEX 
 
Communication from the Chairpersons of the Committees on Anti-Dumping Practices,  
on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and on Safeguards 
  
Dear Madame Chair, 
 
 We are writing in response to the letters dated 18 February 2005 which you sent to our 
predecessors.  In the letters, you posed two questions and requested the chairs of the Anti-Dumping Committee, the Subsidies and Countervailing Committee and the Safeguards Committee ("the three Committees") to take them up in consultations with the Members on your behalf.  As you would recall, the 
two questions were the following: 
 
(i) whether the harmonized rules of origin should be applied to the Agreement on 
Implementation of Article VI of the GATT 1994 (the Anti-Dumping Agreement), the Agreement on Subsidies and Counterv ailing Measures and the Agreement on 
Safeguards;  and  
(ii) whether the harmonized rules of orig in should be applied to the problem of 
circumvention of trade remedy measures. 
 The three of us and our predecessors have held 4 consultations with the Members on this issue:  on 
1 April, on 6 April, on 28 April and on 16 June.  We, as our predecessors had done, decided that the best 
way to organize the consultations that you requested was as joint informal consultations of the three Committees.  The questions that you posed in respect of  the three Agreements are essentially identical, and 
the  issues for each of the three Committees are closely related to each other.  It was our view that there 
would be, thus, substantial benefit for coherence of the discussion, and for consistency of the final outcome 
of the discussion, to meet jointly. This was especially pertinent with regard to anti-dumping measure and countervailing duties ("CVD"), as many of the provis ions regarding these two types of measures are very 
similar, if not exactly the same.  
 
 While the discussions were useful in clarifying some issues and in illuminating why the Members 
could not agree with each other, we regret to inform you that our consultations did not lead to any consensus among Members on the response to either of the two questions that you posed. For your information, the Attachment to this letter contains a factual summary of the major positions expressed by 
Members in the course of our informal consultations.  
  In addition to the factual summary, we submit below our own observations.  These observations are ours, made on our own responsibility, and are not agreed views of the Members: 
 
• In light of the fact that the two questions from y ou are fairly broad, we posed some sub-questions 
to Members in order to structure and facilitate the discussion.  These questions are reproduced in 
the Attachment.  Some Members also posed sub-questions in relation to your two questions. Members' responses, if any, to most of these sub-questions were quite varied, and often were 
somewhat imprecise.  In any case, Members were not able to agree on a response to any of the 
sub-questions.  Some Members explained that the reason for the difficulty in responding to these 
detailed questions was that there were no concre te examples of cases in which rules of origin 
played a major role in trade remedy proceedings. Others took the view that the sub-questions were irrelevant to answering your questions.  As for them, your questions were clear. 
 
• As indicated in the Attachment, throughout the co nsultations, we encouraged Members to identify 
the specific provisions of the three Agreements to which they believed the concept of origin was 
relevant.  While most of the discussion was focused on general issues, several specific provisions in each Agreement were discussed individually. WT/GC/92 
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 • The Chair of the Committee on Rules of Origin, in response to a question posed by our 
predecessors, explained that there were diverging views on the provisions – Articles 1.2 and 3(a) – 
of the Agreement on Rules of Origin that cross-refer to the three Agreements.  Given this 
response, and given that the three Committees' mandates do not extend to the interpretation of 
Agreements other than their own, we and our pr edecessors asked Members not to simply repeat 
the discussion made in the Committee on Rules of Origin.  However, it is clear from the discussion that some Members believe that the key to the response to the two questions lies in these provisions of the Agreement on Rules of Origin.  
 
• One of the major challenges in the discussion was that Members could not agree even on how to 
approach the two questions.  Two broad approaches emerged from the discussion.  The first 
approach was to try to provide a straightforward response  -- which for the Members taking this approach was "yes" -- to the two questions.  As noted above, those who took this approach referred to Articles 1.2 and 3(a) of the Agreement on Rules of Origin as the basis for their view.  
The second approach was to analys e how exactly the concept of origin was relevant to specific 
provisions of the three Agreements.  Those who took this position stated that they could not respond to the two questions unless Members could agree on the implication of the concept of origin in various provisions of the Agreements, including on the basis of Members' practices.  In 
this connection, some detailed questions were  posed by certain Members concerning various 
provisions of the Agreements, as well as concerning aspects of other Members' practices.  
Members could not agree on any responses to those questions, however, and  some Members did not wish to discuss them at all, as they considered them neither relevant nor illuminating.   
 
• As indicated in the attachment, some Members made clear that they believed that the consultations 
in the context of the three Committ ees had gone as far as they could, and that little could be added 
through further discussions. In particular, while some of these Members found that the discussions had been useful in identifying the problems and in clarifying the reasons for the substantive differences of view, they also indicated that their basic positions had not changed.  While the view also was expressed that if more time had been available, there would have been more issues to 
discuss, it was clear that there is no consensus among Members to seek to prolong this process.  
Therefore, in view of the lack of progress in narrowing the substantive differences among 
Members, and in view of the fact that some Me mbers have made very clear that they would not 
support any prolongation of the current discussions in the three Committees, it is our view that the 
three Committees have taken the discussion of the questions that you posed to us as far as they 
can.  Given that we see no basis for further work on these issues in the three Committees, we 
consider that we have now completed the task that you requested us to carry out on your behalf. 
 
 
Yours sincerely,  
   
Ana Novik,     Frida Collste,       Victoria Campeanu, 
Chairperson,    Chairper son,      Chairperson 
Committee on Safeguards   Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices   Committee on Subsidies              a n d  C o u n t e r v a i l i n g  D u t i e s  
  WT/GC/92 
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 ATTACHMENT TO LETTER  
 
Summary of major views expressed in the jo int consultations held on the issue of  
the implication of the harmonized rules of origin  
 
A. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND  
1. At the General Council meeting held on 15 Fe bruary 2005, under "other business", the Chair 
of the General Council, referring to the ongoi ng work program on the harmonization of non-
preferential rules of origin,  requested the Chairpersons of the Committees on Anti-Dumping Practices, on Subsidies and Countervailing Measure s and on Safeguards ("the three Committees") to 
take up the following questions in  consultations on his behalf: 
(i) whether the harmonized rules of orig in should be applied to the Agreement 
on Implementation of Article VI of th e GATT 1994 (the Anti-Dumping Agreement), 
the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures and the Agreement on Safeguards;  and  
(ii) whether the harmonized rules of origin should be applied to the problem of 
circumvention of trade remedy measures. 
2. The Chair of the General Council further request ed that the Chairs of the three Committees 
report on the outcome of their consultations before July 2005.  
3. In response to the above request, the three Comm ittees held joint inform al consultations on 
this matter: on 1 April, on 6 April, on 28 April, and on 16 June 2005. A summary of the comments 
made by Members at these meetings are reproduced below.    
4. In light of the fact that the two questions fro m the Chair of the General Council were fairly 
broad, the chairs of the three Committees ("the th ree Chairs") posed sub-questions to Members in 
order to structure and facilitate the discussion. In  concrete, the following three questions were posed 
in relation to all the three instruments/Agreements.  
• First, to discuss the broad issue of origin of a good in the application of, 
respectively, anti-dumping, countervailing, and safeguard, measures.   
• Second, to discuss the specific provisions of the Anti-Dumping / Subsidies / 
Safeguards Agreements relevant to the issues referred to us by the Chair of the General Council.  
• Finally, to discuss the issue of origin in  the context of circumvention of trade 
remedy measures.   
5. In the same vein, the three Chairs posed  some questions with regard to each 
measure/Agreement. Those questions are repr oduced below under the relevant heading.   
6. Some of the comments described below have b een made in response to these questions.   WT/GC/92 
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 B. G
ENERAL  
1. Questions posed by the Chair of the General Council 
7. One major area of general discussion was the meaning of, and the best approach to, the 
questions posed by the Chair of the General Coun cil.  A range of views was expressed, but no 
consensus was reached.   
8. On the one hand, there was the view that the response to the first question from the Chair of 
the General Council was a short and clear "yes". Those who held this view refe rred to Articles 1.2 and 
3(a) of the Agreement on Rules of Origin as the ba sis for their view, and considered that the two 
questions of the Chair of the General Council coul d be answered directly without discussing the sub-
questions.  Here, the further view was expressed th at it was neither helpful nor appropriate for the 
three Chairs to have subdivided th e General Council Chair's questions. 
9. On the other hand, there was the view that, no ting the fact that the first question from the 
Chair of the General Council read "whether the harmonized rules of origin should  be applied to the 
[three Agreements]", the focus of the discussion  went beyond whether the harmonized rules of origin 
applied or not to the three Agreements. The contra ry view was expressed that no such distinction was 
made in the questions posed.   
10. A further view expressed was that Members first had to discuss how the concept of origin and 
the harmonized rules of origin were applicable to sp ecific provisions of the three Agreements in order 
to respond meaningfully to the questions from the Chair of the General Council.  Disagreement was 
voiced on this point, in particular  that the questi ons from the Chair of the General Council did not ask 
how, but whether , the harmonized rules of origin should apply. 
2. Concept of origin in the three Agreements 
11. A second major area of general discussion in the consultations was the concept of origin in 
the context of the three Agreements.  A range of vi ews was expressed, but no consensus was reached.   
12. First, no Member took the view that the usage of the exact term "origin" in a given provision 
of one of the three Agreements was determinative in deciding whether the concept of origin (or the 
harmonized rules of origin) was relevant to that provision.  That said, Members expressed different 
views as to how the concept of origin is expr essed, and what it means, in the Agreements.   
13. Many Members were of the view that the concept of origin was relevant to various provisions 
of the three Agreements, regardless of whether the te rm "origin" appeared in those provisions. Several 
Members further stated that harmonized rules of or igin should be applied to all the provisions where 
the concept of origin was relevant.  Those Member s cited Articles 1.2 and 3(a) of the Agreement on 
Rules of Origin as the basis for this view. 
14. Some Members sought clarification of this gene ral proposition that the concept of origin is 
relevant to various provisions of the three Agreements , whether or not the term "origin" appears.  One 
of the queries tabled was how rules of origin could be applied to all provisions  where the concept of 
origin is relevant , if those provisions were not specifically identified and agreed upon.  The request 
was made from the floor that Members considering that  the term "origin" was not determinative of the 
relevance of the concept of origin to a given pr ovision identify the specifi c provisions that they 
referred to in this regard.  No Member provided a specific response on this point. 
15. There was another view which, while agreeing th at the concept of origin was relevant to 
various provisions of the three Agreem ents regardless of whether the te rm "origin" appeared, held that  WT/GC/92 
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 the context/purpose of the concept of origin in the three Agreements could be different from that of 
the Agreement on Rules of Origin.  In particular , the former Agreements referred to origin of 
dumping/subsidizing/imports, while the latter referred  to origin of a "product". Several Members 
expressed doubt about the existence, in s ubstance, of any such distinction.  
16. A further view held that neither the concept of origin, nor the harmonized rules of origin, was 
applicable to any of the three Agreements. 
3. Country of origin/country of export in trade remedy actions 
17. A third major area of general discussion was how the concepts of country of origin and 
country of export apply in trade remedy actions.  Again, a range of views was expressed, but no 
consensus was reached.   
18. One Member submitted a number of questions on the current practices of Members in 
applying rules of origin in the context of their trade remedy actions.2  In response, another Member 
stated that it normally assumed that the country where the exporter was located was the country of 
origin.  The issue of origin had not played a major role in its trade remedies up to that point, and it 
therefore could not contribute in detail to answ ering the questions.  The additional view was 
expressed that practices of countries were not releva nt to the questions posed by the Chair of the 
General Council. 
19. There also was a query on how an importing c ountry could determine the country of "export" 
of a product without using the concept of origin. Th at is, it would seem that the rule of origin was 
normally determinative in defining where a good was "exported" from.  One response to this query, 
was that the terms "country of export" and "country of  origin" appeared in parallel in some provisions 
of the three Agreements, indicating an intentional distinction between them.  One Member stated in 
this context that it would be useful to analyze if there was any hierarchy among the various provisions in order to determine the precise implication of th e different terms like origin and export, and cited 
certain specific provisions as examples, while noti ng that it did not intend this to constitute an 
exhaustive list of issues, problems or provisions. 
C. A
GREEMENT ON SAFEGUARDS  
20. To facilitate the discussion of origin and harm onized rules of origin in the context of 
safeguards, the three Chairs posed the followi ng safeguards-specific question to Members:   
Unlike the other two instruments, safeguard measures are imposed "irrespective of ... 
source" (Article 2.2 of the Safeguards Agre ement). Where is the concept of origin 
relevant to safeguard measures?  
21. In the discussion, a range of views wa s expressed, but no consensus was reached. 
22. The question was posed by a certain Member  whether Article 9.1 of the Agreement on 
Safeguards ("SG Agreement") could be applied on the basis of origin of the product in question, 
rather than on the basis of country of export.  That is, if the volume of a given product exported by a developing country was less than three per cent, but on the basis of rules of origin the volume of the 
product "originating" in that deve loping country exceeded three per cent, then applying Article 9.1 
(i.e. the three per cent test) on the basis of country of  origin rather than country of export could mean 
that the developing country in question would not be exempted from the safeguard measure.  In 
response, the question was raised whether this sort of situation was frequent in real life, and whether 
                                                     
 
2Circulated as docu ment Job(05)/52. WT/GC/92 
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 application of the concept of origin in the contex t of Article 9.1 would necessarily be to the detriment 
of developing countries.  In particular, the issue of orig in in this context appeared to be neutral, in that 
it could just as easily occur that a third country could be the country of origin of a proportion of the volume of product exported from a developing country,  in which case, if eligibility for special and 
differential treatment under Article 9.1 were based on origin, exports from that developing country 
would be exempted from the safeguard measure, ev en when the trade volume counted in terms of 
(direct) exports exceeded three per cent.  
23. There was a query whether the concept of origin was relevant to the term "substantial interest 
in supplying the product" in Article 5.2 (quota allocati on).  One view was  that  the concept of origin 
was relevant to this provision altho ugh the term "origin" does not appear. 
24. Another query  was whether the concept of or igin was relevant to the term "substantial 
interest as exporters of the product" in Article 12. 3, which stipulates the country that has to be 
consulted by the Member imposing th e safeguard measure. If the concept of origin indeed applied, the 
originating country might have no knowledge of where the good in question ultimately was exported 
to, and thus might not even be aware of its cons ultation rights under Article 12.3.  In response, one 
view was  that the concept of origin was relevant in this context, while another view was that the 
concept of origin was not relevant there.   
25. A further question was whether the concept of origin was relevant to the term "exporting 
Members" which appeared in Articles 8.1 and 8.2; that is, whether the country that was physically 
exporting the good subject to the safeguard measure ha d the right to suspend certain obligations in 
reaction to the measure, or whether it was the count ry where the subject good originated that had the 
right to do so.  More specifically, the Member that submitted this query raised the following 
hypothetical example: (a) a firm in country A was producing semi-conductors, (b) those semi-
conductors were exported to country B where they were incorporated into computer mother boards 
and, (c) country C intended to impose a safegua rd on those mother boards.  Assuming that the 
harmonized rules of origin defined the origin of su ch mother boards on the basis of the value added, 
and that on this basis their origin was country A,  this Member asked whether it was country A or 
country B that had the right to suspend concession under Article 8.2.  Some Members were of  the 
view that it was country A, while some other Member s were of the view that it was country B.  One 
additional view was that the notion of origin was not re levant to Article 8.1 or to Article 8.2.  It also 
was stated that the question of how exactly to determine who was the "exporting Member" in this 
context was a question that existed irrespective of the introduction of the harmonized
 rules of origin 
and thus, the relevance of this question to the question from the Ch air of the General Council was not 
clear. 
D. AGREEMENT ON SUBSIDIES AND COUNTERVAILING MEASURES  
26. To facilitate the discussion of origin and harmonized  rules of origin in the context of subsidies 
and countervailing measures ("SCM"), the three Chai rs posed the following SCM-specific questions 
to Members:   
Countervailing duty is an instrument that is aimed to "offset [...] any subsidy 
bestowed ... upon the manufacture, productio n or export of any merchandise" (SCM 
Agreement footnote 36). Therefore, regardless of where a good is (physically) exported/shipped from, the investigation would always focus on the granting government.  To what extent is the concept of orig in relevant in this regard?            
Is the origin issue relevant to provisions  of the SCM Agreement other than those 
relating to CVD?  If so, which ones and why?    WT/GC/92 
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 27. In the discussion, a range of views wa s expressed, but no consensus was reached. 
28. One view expressed was that of the three agreemen ts, the application of the concept of origin 
was most troubling in the context of countervailin g duties ("CVDs").  In a CVD investigation, the 
focus should be on the imported product itself, and the subsidy to manufacture, produce or export it.  
The granting government was the fo cus of the analysis, and the origin concept should not divert 
attention away from the granting government, as this  would undermine the purpose of the Agreement. 
29. In reaction to this point, one Member referred to a CVD that had been applied to D-RAMs 
produced in its territory, and stated that the same CVD also was at the same time applied to certain 
wafers, on the grounds that the wafe rs conferred the origin of the D-RAMs in question.  Thus the 
subsidized wafers were not differentiated from th e subsidized D-RAMS.  This Member considered 
this to be an example of a Member seeming to rela te the concept of origin with CVDs.  The view was 
further stated that a similar logi c was applicable to safeguards. 
30. A query was submitted as to how Members w ould treat goods imported through a trading 
company (located in a third country) in an anti-du mping investigation or a CVD investigation. In 
response, a certain Member stated that for it, the CVD investigation would normally focus on the 
government granting the subsidy.  This Member did not recall any case where a country that was 
simply trans-shipping a good (through a trading company) was subsidizing that good. 
31. Another query posed was how, if at all, the c oncept of origin was relevant to the term 
"Members the product of which may be subject to [the CVD] investigation shall be invited for 
consultations" in Article 13.1. That is, did the count ry initiating an CVD investigation have to consult 
with the Member physically exporting the subject  product, or instead with the Member where the 
subject product originated.  No Member provided a specific response on this issue.    
32. A further point raised was the potential releva nce of the concept of origin to the non-CVD 
portions of the SCM Agreement, as for example in the context of the references in Article 6 (serious 
prejudice) to quantities of imports and exports. 
33. In the context of the non-CVD portions of th e SCM Agreement, the following hypothetical 
example was posed by a Member:  (a) governments of several WTO Members ("participating 
countries") owned a substantive share of a large manufacturing firm, (b) the headquarters of this 
manufacturing firm was located in country A, (c) di fferent semi-finished products were manufactured 
in the territory of the participating countries, (d ) these semi-finished products  were assembled into a 
finished product in country A, and that produc t was then exported from country A.  The Member 
posing this example asked what would constitute th e country of origin and the granting government 
under these scenarios:  (i) in a case where the particip ating countries provided subsidies within their 
national territories, or (ii) in a case where the participating countries pr ovided subsidy to the 
headquarter of the firm for distribution among the various productions sites located in the participating countries, assuming that the proportion of the value added in each country was the same.    
This Member was inclined to thin k that neither the concept of origin nor the harmonized rules of 
origin would be relevant in these s ituations, and that this indicated that there were many provisions in 
the three Agreements where the c oncept of origin was not relevant.  One Member followed up by 
asking whether any Member took the view that rules of origin would apply in the scenarios outlined.   
34. One reaction was that, where the issue was CVDs , it could be considered that origin was 
conferred by the place of final assembly (i.e., country  A).  Another reaction was that, by default, the 
SCM Agreement always operated within the context of  the jurisdiction of the granting authority.  One 
question concerning the example was whether the several countries could be viewed as a single 
Member, and CVDs levied against each of these Members.   WT/GC/92 
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 35. The Member posing the example further pursued the  issue of origin by asking whether, in the 
context of a serious prejudice dispute, assuming the subsidies were found to cause serious prejudice, and origin was conferred by place of final assembly, this meant that the government of the country of 
final assembly would bear the full brunt of the multi lateral remedies.  Did the notion of origin apply 
differently to CVD and to serious prejudice?  Here , one reply was that the governing language of 
Article 5 of the SCM Agreement, "No Member should cause, through the use of any subsidy ... 
adverse effects ... ", was not restricted to one country (i.e., that of origin).  Thus, if multiple countries 
were subsidizing, all could be subject to multilateral disciplines provided there was a causal 
relationship.   
36. The example was then changed to a firm that  purchased subsidized inputs and passed on the 
upstream subsidies when it sold its final product, and that also received subsidies in respect of its own 
production activities.  The question was whether bot h the upstream subsidies on the inputs and the 
subsidies to the firm would be taken into account in a serious prejudice analysis.  In response, the 
view was expressed that the issue raised was th e separate question of causation, and that it was 
unclear whether origin would have a bearing on th e facts that would need to be analyzed.   
37. On the issue of the non-CVD provisions of th e SCM Agreement more generally, one view 
expressed was that while the concep t of origin might have little or  no relevance to the non-CVD 
portions of the SCM Agreement (for example, Articles 1 and 2),  this did not mean that the concept of 
origin and the harmonized rules of origin were i rrelevant to the SCM Agre ement in general.  In 
response, the statement was made concurring that th ere was no way to tell simply by reading a given 
provision of the SCM Agreement whether or wh ere the concept of origin was relevant.  
E. A
NTI-DUMPING AGREEMENT  
38. To facilitate the discussion of origin and harm onized rules of origin in the context of anti-
dumping, the three Chairs posed the following anti-dumping-specific questions to Members:  
Members have had [in the meetings of 1 and 6 April] some 
discussion on Article 2.5.  Are there any other provisions Members 
find it useful to discuss in responding to the questions of the Chair of 
the General Council?     
39. A view was put forward that the usage of th e term "exporting country" in Article 2 and the 
logic of Article 2.5 indicated that the concept of  origin as used in the Anti-Dumping Agreement was 
different from that as used in the Agreement on Ru les of Origin.  That is, the former provisions 
referred to origin of dumped imports, while the latter referred to origin of a product.  A contrary view 
held that Article 2.5 granted the investigating au thority the discretion to choose between using the 
data of the originating country and of the expor ting country.  A further point raised concerning 
Article 2.5, in particular the re ference to products not produced in  the country of export, was how 
Members determine if a product is produced in a part icular country.  One Member considered that this 
query demonstrated the importance of Members' practi ce in considering origin / rules of origin issues 
in trade remedies, and recalled the questions that  it had submitted concer ning Members' practices, 
which questions remained open. 
40. The question was raised whether and how the con cept of origin was relevant to Article 12.1 
where the terms "the Member [...] the products  of which are subject to [an anti-dumping] 
investigation" appeared.  That is, assuming that  an anti-dumping investigation could be initiated vis-à-
vis the country where the subject product originated , what was the rationale of naming the "exporting 
country" in the relevant public notice, as required by Article 12.1.1?  Identifying in the public notice a 
country other than the one subject to investiga tion would seem to undermine the rationale for the 
public notice.  One Member replied that it made th e notifications and notices under Article 12.1 based  WT/GC/92 
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 on origin rules.  This Member stated further that the concept of origin, and thus the harmonized rules 
of origin, were relevant to the Anti-Dumping Ag reement, and cited Article 2.2.2 as an example. 
41. Another query concerned the term "cost of production in the country of origin" in Article 2.2.  
The hypothetical scenario posed w as that a subject product was manufactured in and "originated" in 
one country, then underwent subseque nt manufacturing (which did not change its origin) in a second 
country, and then was subject to an anti-dumping inv estigation when exported in final form to a third 
country.  The question was whether the "cost of prod uction" for purposes of Article 2.2 could consist 
only of the costs incurred in the country of origin , i.e., whether Article 2.2 would prohibit taking the 
costs, profits etc. from the second country into account  in the calculations.  One reaction was that this 
issue might reflect a problem in the Anti-Dumping Ag reement itself, that might need to be fixed, 
rather than a problem of applying harmonized rules of origin.  Concerning rules of origin, the problem 
was that Members had different practices under the current text, and this was the problem addressed 
by harmonized rules of origin.  Another reaction was that harmonized rules of origin should be 
applied to all provisions where the concept of or igin was relevant.  For the Member posing the 
example, the issue was not necessarily questioning the general application of harmonized rules of 
origin to anti-dumping, but rather whether su ch application was uniform in all places.   
F. CIRCUMVENTION  
42. Many Members were of the view that they could not have a meaningful discussion on the 
issue of circumvention until Members had a clearer view on the first question from the Chair of the General Council.  Certain Members pointed out that there was no agreement on the definition of 
"circumvention".  Some Members took the position th at as the three Agreements did not provide 
special rules for “circumvention”, the only way to  deal with “circumvention” was through the 
standard measures currently provided for in the th ree Agreements, in which case the harmonized rules 
of origin would apply.  A contrary view was that  as there are no rules on circumvention, nothing in 
the Agreement on Rules of Origin or the three Agreements could require the application of 
harmonized rules of origin there.   
43. The view also was expressed that harmonized rul es of origin were not designed to tackle the 
issue of circumvention, and that circumventi on of anti-dumping measures was more appropriately 
dealt with under a discussion on a uniform multilate ral rule.  On the other hand, the view was 
expressed that harmonized rules of origin could be used as a threshold to determine the existence of 
circumvention.      
G. 
PROCEDURAL ISSUES  
44. The three Chairs decided to take up the request directed to them by the Chair of the General 
Council (i.e., to consult on behalf of the Chai r of General Council with Members concerning the 
questions raised) in joint informal consultations of the three Committees.  It was the view of the three 
Chairs that this way of proceeding would be most efficient and would help to ensure as cohesive a 
discussion as possible, given that the questions on which each was asked to consult were identical, 
and given that there is considerable substantive overlap in the provisions of the three Agreements, 
particularly the Anti-Dumping Agreement and the co untervail provisions of the SCM Agreement.   
45. The three Chairs initially called two sessions of  joint consultations, at the second of which 
they indicated that they would call a third, as a number of issues remained to be discussed.  At the 
third consultation, a number of Members expressed views about whether any further sessions should be held.  One Member said that more sessions shoul d be convened, extending past July if necessary, 
and that these should be convened as separate session s for the different Committees, rather than joint 
sessions.  Some other Members questioned the utility of  any further sessions, and indicated that in any 
case they did not support the idea of separ ate sessions for the three Committees.   WT/GC/92 
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 46. The three Chairs convened a fourth session of  joint informal consultations.  Members 
commented on the draft factual summary presented by  the three Chairs, and also made certain new 
comments on the substantive issues.  It was requested  that the factual summary make clear that the 
examples, provisions and arguments referred to in the discussions should not be taken as an 
exhaustive catalogue of relevant issues.  At the e nd of the meeting, the three Chairs offered their 
assessment of the situation and indicated how they  intended to report to the Chair of the General 
Council.  One comment from the floor on the Chai rs' assessment was that while the discussions had 
been taken as far as was possible under the existing time constraints, there would be more issues to 
discuss if more time were available.  The contrary  view was voiced from the floor that the discussions 
had been exhausted, and that little more could be added through further discussions.  A further view 
from the floor was that, while Members had not br idged their substantive differences, they now 
understood much better the reasons for those differences. 
 
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