무역구제조사상 국내산업피해 관련 인과관계 분석

Under the WTO system, there are two essential qualifying factors to prove causation elements for implementing trade remedy measures: (1) the causal relationship between import increase and injury to the domestic industry and (2) the non-attribution principle. Nevertheless, these two concepts are neither clearly defined in legal provisions nor consistently applied in practice. To find out how those two conditions are actually applied, this paper first analyzes WTO disputes over the causal link and non-attribution issues of antidumping, countervailing and safeguard measures. The current WTO jurisprudence shows a symmetrical approach on causation analysis in implementing all three trade remedy measures. On the ground that safeguard measures are allowed based on fundamentally different objectives from those of antidumping and countervailing measures, there arises a question of whether such practice is proper. In addition, this paper notes that, in practice, the investigating authorities have much discretion in proving the causal link and non-attribution principle and that the most commonly used approaches are simple trend comparison and exclusive dependence on qualitative assessment. These practices have some fundamental econometric problems which are occasionally mentioned even by the WTO panels and the Appellate Body. This paper suggests that it may be worth adopting carefully tailored econometric methods for analysis or at least, developing basic guidelines to consider in the causation analysis.