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В декабре 2022 г. был опубликован доклад третейской группы по спору Индонезия – Сырьевые материалы. Спор инициирован по жалобе ЕС. Этот доклад интересен во многих аспектах, включая процесс добычи и экономическое значение никеля для экономики ответчика, толкования Статьи XI:2(a) и Статьи XX(d) ГАТТ 1994. По результатам разбирательства меры Индонезии в отношении экспорта никелевой руды были признаны незаконными и не подпадающими ни под охват изъятий из общего запрета применения количественных ограничений, ни под общие исключения из обязательств. В настоящей статье анализируются аргументы истца и ответчика, сделанные третейской группой толкования и выводы. Доклад третейской группы по спору Индонезия – Сырьевые материалы оставил открытыми множество вопросов. Например, вывод, что промышленное сырье не может иметь для экономики страны существенного значения, если его использование только планируется для создания новой отрасли (в данном случае – аккумуляторов для электромобилей). Из этого фактически следует, что разрыв между странами, которые уже успешно производят электромобили и теми, кто только планирует это делать, должен увеличиваться. Индонезия обжаловала решение третейской группы. Сложно предугадать, будет ли когда-либо у Апелляционного органа возможность дать свою оценку. В любом случае совершенно ясно, что сомнительные трактовки правил ВТО создают для организации дополнительные системные риски. Равно как и заставляют призадуматься об объективности разрешения торговых споров., The WTO panel released its report on Indonesia (Raw Materials dispute) in December 2022. The dispute case was launched by the EU. Th is report is interesting in many respects, including such issues as production processes, the importance of nickel for the defendant’s economy, and interpretations of Articles XI:2(a) and XX(d) of the GATT 1994. Pursuant to the proceedings, Indonesia’s measures with respect to the exports of nickel ore were found as illegal and falling neither within the scope of exceptions to the quantitative restrictions, nor the exceptions to the processing obligations. The article analyzes the arguments of the parties, and the interpretations and conclusions made by the panel. The report of the panel raises many questions. For example, the conclusion that an industrial commodity can not be of essential importance for defendant’s economy if its use is only planned to create a new industry (in this case, batteries for electric vehicles). Consequently, de facto, the gap between the countries that are already engaged in successful production of electric cars and those who only plan to do this should increase. Indonesia has appealed this decision. It is hard to predict whether the Appellate Body will ever have the opportunity to give its assessment. In any case, it is quite clear that questionable interpretations of the WTO rules create additional systemic risks for the organization. As well as they make one ponder over the objectivity of trade dispute resolution.

The principle of the free movement of goods in one of great importance for the European Union and for in general and for the Internal Market and the European citizens in particular. Starting from the fact that the Internal market is considered to be a critical element for the present and future prosperity of the European Union in a globalized world, the objective of the present text is to present and analyse, in a concise manner, the main legal provisions that govern this field. In order to accomplish this objective we made reference to the following aspects: considerations regarding the role and importance of the free movement of goods in the European internal market; the role of the European Commission within the internal market and implicitly for the free movement of goods; Treaty provisions governing the free movement of goods; and related instruments of secondary law related to the free movement of goods.

This paper examines the welfare effect of foreign investment under quantitative restrictions for a host country with a cash-in-advance constraint. This constraint results in a divergence between the consumer virtual prices and the world prices. If the cash required for purchasing exportable goods exceeds that of the importable, additional foreign investment can widen the price divergence and, thus, reduce welfare. This result is contrary to the conventional view that foreign investment is non-immiserizing under quantitative restrictions. On the other hand, if the cash requirement is larger for buying importable goods, foreign investment can still promote welfare.

We present a simple computable model of EC footwear production and trade coupled with a rudimentary production model for Eastern Europe. We simulate the liberalization of EC footwear imports from Eastern Europe as planned under the so-called Europe Agreements. We find that if Eastern Europe can improve its productivity modestly both East and West can gain significantly from liberalization. These gains are concentrated on the EC-North, however, while the major footwear producing areas of the EC lose. The benefits of liberalization to Eastern Europe do not depend strongly on their gaining preferential access to the EC -- they persist even if all suppliers to the EC have free access.

The authors introduce a new measure, the Trade Restrictiveness Index, to measure the restrictiveness of a system of trade protection. They propose an alternative to the commonly used ad hoc indexes of trade restrictiveness, such as the trade-weighted average tariff. That measure has no welfare-theoretic basis and can be highly misleading, in practice. For example, the complete exclusion of trade in a commodity would usually lower the index, because its trade weight would fall to zero. The authors show that their proposed index is soundly based in standard welfare economics. When trade is restricted by tariffs only, the Trade Restrictiveness Index equals the uniform tariff, which would be equivalent to the existing system of tariffs in the sense of yielding the same level of aggregate welfare. But tariffs have declined in importance in recent years as a means of restricting trade, so the measure must also be able to take account of quantitative restrictions on trade. Where quotas are the only form of restriction, this is easy: the Index equals the equiproportionate reduction in permitted import volumes that is welfare-equivalent to the initial structure of quotas. When both quotas and tariffs are present, the Index can be defined as the uniform tariff factor (one plus the uniform tariff) and uniform import reduction factor which would yield the same level of welfare as the initial system of trade restrictions. The authors show how this can be formulated, noting that if a single good is subject to both a binding quota and a tariff, it should be viewed as quota-constrained - the tariff serves merely to ensure that some of the rents accrue to the importing country. These theoretical derivations permit a major synthesis of the theory of protection and suggest how the results of computable general equilibrium models might be presented to make them internationally and intertemporally comparable. But in most cases such a model is not available and, even if it were, it would not be sufficiently disaggregated to deal with a complicated system of trade protection. So the authors present some empirical short-cuts that can be adopted for estimating changes in the Index. Chief among these is the assumption that the goods under consideration are separable from others in an appropriate general-equilibrium sense. This can provide a rigorous foundation for a form of partial-equilibrium analysis (the consideration of a subset of markets in an economy). They also show how the Trade Restrictiveness Index can be adapted to allow for different forms of rent sharing and for a country's ability to influence its terms of trade. Applying these empirical methods to exports of textiles and apparel from Hong Kong to the United States, the authors find that the protective system becomes more restrictive for both countries over the seven years considered (1982-88). Increased trade restrictiveness does not necessarily mean that quotas have been tightened. When there is economic growth, constant or even rising import quotas might still amount to a tightening of protection. Results based on the trade-weighted average of "tariff equivalents" (the gaps between Hong Kong and U.S. prices) diverge significantly from those of the Trade Restrictiveness Index. The two measures have opposite implications for the change in trade restrictiveness for two-thirds of the observations.

The imposition of a quantitative restriction on imports implies that someone somewhere is quantity-rationed. If prices rise to cut demand back to the constraint level, suppliers are rationed; if not, demanders are. In this paper we develop techniques for identifying if and when consumers are rationed and for taking account of rationing in the estimation of demand equations and in the calculation of welfare effects. By way of example we consider the effects of the various non-tariff barriers that have affected imports of different types of footwear from certain suppliers into the UK. We estimate simple CES demand systems for four types of footwear, identifying in each case the principal suppliers. Our results reveal several cases in which import restrictions on footwear led to rationing and suggest that even if prices did not rise to clear the market, the welfare losses to UK consumers of being limited in their purchases of footwear were as high as 53m pounds sterling in 1986.