Establishing a New Role for Antidumping Policy: Protection of an Unestablished Industry (Morocco–Hot-Rolled Steel (Turkey))

This article analyses economic and legal issues in the WTO dispute between Morocco and Turkey over hot-rolled steel. Over 2013–2014, the Moroccan government conducted an antidumping investigation against two Turkish steel producers. Morocco's investigation concluded that Turkish dumping was retarding the establishment of a new domestic industry; antidumping duties were imposed against both Turkish producers. Turkey filed a complaint at the WTO in 2016, asserting procedural and substantive violations. The Panel found that Morocco had acted inconsistently with a number of WTO obligations, including those regarding its injury investigation. Although Morocco initially appealed the Panel's decision, it withdrew its appeal after the antidumping duties expired in September 2019. This case is unusual and important in that it was the first antidumping case in which a country sought to use antidumping duties to protect a newly developing industry. The Panel may have missed an opportunity to explore the definition of an ‘unestablished’ industry for purposes of determining injury in an antidumping investigation.

Antidumping as a Development Issue

Antidumping policy was for many years an instrument employed almost exclusively by a small number of developed economies. Over the past 15 years, however, the use of this instrument of trade policy has spread to developing economies, and the overwhelming share of antidumping cases now involve developing countries either as petitioner or as target of these cases. This paper describes these trends in some detail and discusses some implications. A focus of the paper is the absence of discussion in the development economics literature on the topic despite the increasingly important role played by antidumping policy.