The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization Text, Cases, and Materials

While professing support for trade liberalisation, trade policymakers often insist that international trade should be ‘fair’. ‘Unfair’ trade comes in many forms and guises. Unfair trade practices may include cartel agreements, price fixing, and the abuse of a dominant position on the market.1 WTO law, at present, does not provide for rules on these and many other particular forms of unfair trade. This absence of rules partly reflects a lack of agreement on what are ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ trade practices. WTO law provide for detailed rules with respect to dumping and certain types of subsidisation – two specific trade practices commonly considered to be ‘unfair’. Members differ in opinion as to what extent these trade practices are truly ‘unfair’. This difference in opinion among Members reflects differences in their societies in general and their economic systems in particular.