Abstract: This paper provides a legal-economic analysis of the unappealed WTO Panel Report in Mexico–Olive Oil. The case involved a countervailing-duty measure imposed by Mexico on imports of olive oil from the European Communities (in particular, Spain and Italy). The dispute raised important issues regarding the determination of causation of injury, as neither the Panel nor the investigating authority gave much credence to evidence that the main complaint of the domestic industry was the loss of a distribution agreement and brand-name rights with a Spanish exporter. The dispute also raised interesting concerns regarding the remedies for violations of procedural obligations in the conduct of anti-dumping/ countervailing-duty investigations and the right of a domestic producer that has ceased production to seek protection under the trade-remedy laws.

Introduction

Approximately half of the jurisprudence of the WTO dispute-settlement system consists of disputes arising out of trade-remedy or contingent-protection measures imposed by WTO Members. Given this fact, it might be expected that the jurisprudence on the WTO Anti-Dumping and Subsidy and Countervailing Measure (SCM) Agreements would be relatively settled. Not so. Each new WTO dispute under these agreements, including the recent unappealed WTO Panel Report in Mexico–Olive Oil, throws up both new issues that have yet to be resolved and recurring issues where the jurisprudence continues to evolve.

While the Mexico–Olive Oil dispute was neither particularly complicated nor very controversial, the decision raised several issues that gave rise to new interpretations of the relevant agreements or that illustrated some of the recurring problems in challenging anti-dumping or countervailing-duty measures in WTO dispute-settlement proceedings.