A Special Safeguard Mechanism for Agricultural Imports and the Management of Reform

Finger, J. Michael

关键词: ACCESS TO FOREIGN MARKETS;    ACCOUNTING;    AD VALOREM;    AGREEMENT ON AGRICULTURE;    AGREEMENT ON SAFEGUARDS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4927
RP-ID  :  WPS4927

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The record of traditional safeguardprovisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade andthe World Trade Organization provides useful informationabout how a special agricultural safeguard might be madeeffective. The success of existing safeguard or flexibilityprovisions to sustain long-run liberalization programs stemsfrom their requiring objective, transparent, andparticipatory decisions on the application of the importrestrictions they allow. The proposed special agriculturalsafeguard expands by arithmetic formula the bounds withinwhich a Member may impose a new import restriction.Analysis reported here suggests that the formulas provide apoor guide for policy, indicating that they would frequentlyprescribe action that is not needed and fail to prescribeaction when it would be appropriate.Analysis of theexisting agricultural safeguard, to which the specialagricultural safeguard is similar, indicates that it hasfunctioned not as an allowance for occasional response tounusual situations but as an expansion of the limits Membershave accepted through tariff bindings. To be useful, thespecial agricultural safeguard should do more than provideformulas for import restrictions. It should provide forobjective and participatory processes that would bringforward relevant information and guide an objective andbalanced accounting of the interests at play.