. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONTN/RL/W/50
4 February 2003
(03-0701)
Negotiating Group on Rules Original:  English
CIRCUMVENTION
Communication from the United States
The following communication, dated 3 February 2003, has been received from the Permanent
Mission of the United States.
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Trade remedies form an integral part of the current rules-based international trading system.1
In Doha, the Ministers stressed the importance of the trade remedy rules by stating that Members
should improve and clarify the rules while “preserving the basic concepts, principles and effectiveness
of the Agreements and their instruments and objectives, and taking into account the need of
developing and least developed participants.”2  The United States has used these principles to guide
its submissions and participation in the Rules negotiating process.
In the United States’ view, the Rules Negotiating Group can advance the Ministers’ mandate
through the negotiation of uniform procedures to address the circumvention of anti-dumping and
countervailing duty measures.  Circumvention is a serious concern for Members because it
undermines the effectiveness of the trade remedy rules.  Anti-dumping and countervailing duty
measures are applied in order to offset injurious dumping or countervailable subsidized imports.
However, if exporters are allowed to circumvent or ders and avoid paying duties while continuing their
unfair trade practices, such trade remedy measures are rendered meaningless.  Clear procedures on theprevention of circumvention are needed to preserve the effectiveness of the Agreements and their
instruments and objectives, while ensuring that exporters’ legitimate business decisions are not
undermined.
Importantly, at the end of the Uruguay Round, Ministers identified circumvention as an area
of unfinished work that must be addressed.  The Ministerial Decision on Anti-Circumvention was
adopted at Marrakesh and formed an integral part of the Final Act Embodying the Results of the
Uruguay Round Multilateral Trade Negotiations.  The Decision reads:
Ministers,
Noting  that while the problem of circumvention of anti-dumping measures formed
part of the negotiations which preceded the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of
GATT 1994, negotiators were unable to agree on specific text,
                                                     
1 See Communication from the United States, “Basic Concepts and Principles of the Trade Remedy
Rules,” 22 October 2002 (TN/RL/W/27).
2 WT/MIN(01)/DEC/W/1 (paragraph 28).TN/RL/W/50
Page 2
    Mindful  of the desirability of the applicability of uniform rules in this area as soon
as possible,
Decide  to refer this matter to the Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices established
under the Agreement for resolution.
Thus, the Ministers acknowledged the problem of the evasion of anti-dumping measures
through circumvention, and the need to address this problem “as soon as possible.”3  The Decision
referred the matter to the Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices for resolution.  To fulfill this
mandate, the Committee established the Informal Group on Anti-Circumvention (the “Informal
Group”) to address the problem of circumvention.  Significant progress has been made in the Informal
Group in understanding the nature of circumvention, and that work should continue.4  However, the
United States believes that we should also address this issue in the context of the Rules negotiations in
order to establish clear and uniform anti-circumvention procedures here.
The United States is presenting this paper to encourage the Rules Group to complete the work
called for at the end of the Uruguay Round and to make addressing circumvention an importantpriority in these negotiations.  The United States intends to submit a proposal at a future point in these
negotiations, and would like to hear from other Members about their experiences and ideas for
developing and implementing effective anti-dumping procedures.
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3 While the Ministerial Declaration only addressed the circumvention of anti-dumping measures, and
referred the topic to the Committee on Anti-Dumping Pr actices, there is no difference between circumvention of
anti-dumping and countervailing duty measures.  Actions an exporter may take to circumvent payment of duties
are the same regardless of whether the duties were imposed in response to dumping or subsidization.  Thus,
while the topic is usually discussed in relation to anti-dumping measures, the discussion and resultingprocedures to be negotiated by this group should apply, mutatis mutandis , to countervailing measures under the
Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.
4 As recognized by the Informal Group, circumvent ion can come in various forms.  For example, one
type of circumvention involves the simple assembly of imported parts or components in the importing
Member’s country in order to avoid the imposition of the anti-dumping duty on the completed product.  Another
type involves minor alterations prior to exportation of a product covered by an anti-dumping measure, where thealterations are done to change slightly the physical characteristics of the product in order to fall outside sometechnical specification of a precisely described like product, and thus avoid imposition of anti-dumping duties.