Safeguard Code

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The protection clause code is an instrument developed by the ICC (= International Chamber of Commerce ; German : Internationale Handelskammer ) to amend or supplement Art. XIX GATT (= General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ; German: General Customs and Trade Agreement ) .

Contractual bases

The starting point of the protective clause code is Art. XIX GATT, which under certain conditions provides protective measures against temporary excessive, e.g. B. subsidy-related , import pressure on the part of an exporting state is allowed. The so-called Escape Clause (German: Safeguard Clause) gives the endangered domestic industry a kind of safety valve that should enable it to adapt to radically changed competitive conditions in emergency situations. However, Art. XIX was not applied in many cases because of the hard conditions it entailed. So z. B. the "successful" export country, whose deliveries are temporarily restricted due to Art. XIX, demand compensation. In addition, the most-favored nation clause of Art. I GATT prohibits selective application of Art. XIX to only those (few) countries that actually endanger the domestic industry of the state concerned.

Objective of the Safeguard Code '

This essentially involves a practical interpretation of Art. XIX GATT and thus the escape clause standardized by this provision . The core of the Safeguard Code is a " Safeguard Committee ", which has the task of initially taking up all existing protective measures and thus subordinating them to the discipline of GATT. This is not limited to protective measures within the GATT regulations. Rather, protective measures outside of the GATT rules should also be recorded. Such "external" protective measures are, in particular, measures in the so-called "gray area" of GATT, characterized by arrangements between the governments of the states concerned, circumventing the GATT rules.

In concrete terms, all of this means that compliance with the basic rule of Art. XIX GATT must be checked in each individual case.

Essential provisions

The essential provisions of the Safeguard Code are: a) Evidence of immediate serious damage caused by the imports of the more efficient competitor, b) Time limits for the protective measures, which must also be of a degressive nature, and c) Restriction to exceptional situations in which only under this special protection an adaptation of the "damaged industry" to radically changed competitive conditions appears possible.

Procedural rules

With regard to the rules to be observed, the Protective Clause Code provides that a measure under Art. XIX GATT should no longer be permitted without the approval of the Safeguard Committee . This means that the consensual "gray area measures" customary in the past also require approval by the committee.

Each signatory state of the GATT should have the right to appeal to the committee if it believes its interests have been violated by a protective measure, without having to be a party to the relevant measure approved by the committee. A practical design of the code should also be achieved by adhering to short deadlines and the possibility of having approved measures checked quickly.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Dietrich Scheffler, Legal Aspects of the Subsidy Problem in GATT, in: Law of the International Economy (RIW) 1993, p. 407
  2. ↑ a b Haubenreisser, J., The world economy needs a code for the application of the protective clauses, in: Handelsblatt dated 8./9. April 1988, p. 16
  3. ↑ In depth on the "gray area problem": Gibbs, JM, The Uruguay Round and the International Trading System, JWTL 1987, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 5 f

literature

  • Laubereau, H., Anti-dumping and countervailing duties, in: Regul (Ed.), Taxes and customs duties in the Common Market, Baden-Baden, delivery December 1978.
  • Riesenkampf, A., Pfeifer, A., Defense against dumped and subsidized imports into the European Community, DB 1987, p. 2505.
  • Baldwin, RE, Nontariff Distortions of International Trade, Washington DC 1970.
  • Quambusch, L., Non-Tariff Trade Barriers; a contribution to their systematization, application and elimination, Cologne, Institute for Economic Policy at the University of Cologne, 1976.