Fabian Bickel - Customs Unions in the WTO: Problems with Anti-Dumping

EYIEL Monographs is a subseries of the European Yearbook of International Economic Law (EYIEL). It contains scholarly works in the fields of European and international economic law, in particular WTO law, international investment law, international monetary law, law of regional economic integration, external trade law of the EU and EU internal market law. The series does not include edited volumes. EYIEL Monographs are peer-reviewed by the series editors and external reviewers.

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In the journey leading to this monograph, I was fortunate to have enjoyed the company of my wonderful friends and colleagues. First and foremost, I am thankful for the support of Prof. Christoph Herrmann. He was always there in times of need and encouraged and challenged my ideas. I am thankful to Prof. Pauwelyn for his valuable and extremely detailed comments on earlier drafts of this book.

I am grateful to Dr. Karl Brauner and Dr. Christian Melischek without whom my research stay at the WTO would not have been possible and for being great hosts. I thank Dr. Gustav Brink, Maxim Shmelev, Sahar Hosni, Darlan Mart, Alexis Massot, Jean-Daniel Rey, Nathalie Diaz, Carina van Vuuren, and Graham Cook for their valuable comments and helpful discussions. I also thank Dr. Katharina Steinbrck for her valuable input on an earlier draft of this book and her enduring support.

This monograph is a revised version of my doctoral thesis which was written at the Universitt Passau. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Christoph Herrmann, who also acted as the first examiner. Prof. Joost Pauwelyn acted as the second examiner and Prof. Hans-Georg Dederer chaired the defence, which took place in June 2021.

This thesis would not have been possible without the unconditional support and help of my loved ones and especially not without my parents and Sarah Tillmann.

Events until 5 July 2021 were considered.

Even though the World Trade Organization (WTO)

Therefore unsurprisingly, ongoing regional or bilateral economic integration has probably been the most significant trend for international trade in goods since the creation of the WTO. Whereas in 1995, when the WTO was founded, 47 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and customs unions (together: RTAs) were in force, this has increased more than six-fold to 303 in 2020.all topics that are not or only scarcely regulated multilaterally.

This trend towards more and deeper regionalism is also reflected in a proliferation of customs unions. Whereas in 1995 only eight customs unions existed, by 2020 the number has doubled to 16. Among those, more are deeply integrated with four customs unions now reporting their anti-dumping measures jointly instead of just onethe ECin 1995.

Some attribute this trend to the fact that multilateralism has been in decline ever since the failed WTO negotiations at the 1999 Seattle Ministerial Conference