REPORT OF
THE COMMITTEE TO THE COUNCIL FOR TRADE IN GOODS
ACTIONS
TAKEN AND DISCUSSIONS ON POSSIBLE FUTURE
ACTIONS TO IMPROVE SUBMISSION OF NOTIFICATIONS
(ADOPTED ON 29 OCTOBER 2025)
1 iNTRODUCTION
1._
This report is being prepared
at the request[1] of the Council for Trade
in Goods (CTG) and has been adopted by the Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices
(the ADP Committee) on 29 October 2025 for submission to the CTG.
2._
At its formal meeting of 9
April 2025, the CTG considered a new Secretariat report entitled "Notifications
Status of Regular/Periodic and One Time Only Notifications in the Goods Area
(1995–2024)" (_G/C/W/859). The report, prepared at
the request of the CTG, provides detailed data on submission rates and trends regarding
regular/periodic and one-time notifications. At the
same April 2025 meeting of the CTG, Members recognized that each subsidiary
body is best placed to address the specific notification obligations within its
purview. Accordingly, they agreed that the CTG could play a coordinating role
to support improvements in the overall status of such notifications, building
on the model of the earlier reform by doing discussions.
3._
All
CTG subsidiary bodies were thus requested to: (1) discuss the additional steps that could be taken to improve
the regular/periodic and one‑time only notification requirements they oversee;
(2) identify the steps needed to improve the quality and timeliness of
notifications; and (3) inform the Council of past actions that have worked
well in improving the number of submitted notifications. All subsidiary bodies
were also requested to report back to the CTG by 10 November 2025, to enable consideration at the final
formal CTG meeting of the year.
4._
At its Regular meeting held on
30 April 2025, the outgoing Chair of the ADP Committee made a statement under
Other Business[2] explaining the
above-mentioned details and indicated that this matter would be brought to the
attention of the incoming Chair who would initiate consultations with Members
in this respect.
5._
On 15 September 2025, Members received a communication inviting
them to attend informal consultations on these issues. These informal
consultations were held on 29 September 2025. At that meeting, no
proposals or suggestions were made by any Member. A separate item was also
added to the agenda of the 29 October 2025 Regular meeting of the Committee to
discuss this report and adopt it for submission to the CTG.
6._
This report sets out: (i) past
actions taken to improve the number of notifications submitted; (ii) Secretariat
activities undertaken to enhance transparency under the Anti‑Dumping Agreement;
(iii) the role of the Chair and related Committee deliberations; and (iv) discussions
on additional steps to be taken by the Committee to improve regular/periodic
and one-time only notification requirements, as well as the quality and
timeliness of notifications.
The following summarizes the key past actions that have worked well
in improving the number of submitted notifications:
7._
The ADP Committee has, over the
years, adopted and refined a number of formats and procedures aimed at ensuring
that notifications under the Anti-Dumping Agreement are made in a consistent
and transparent manner.
i. Legislative
notifications
8._
Pursuant to Article 18.5 of the
Anti-Dumping Agreement, Members must notify the full integrated text(s) of
their laws, regulations and administrative procedures in one of the WTO
languages. Any modification to the laws, regulations or administrative
procedures must also be notified promptly. A nil notification has to be made
where a Member does not maintain such laws/regulations.
9._
Legislative notifications are
reviewed at the regular meetings of the ADP Committee. In addition to its
general Rules of Procedures, the Committee adopted specific procedures for the
review of legislative notifications in 1996. These procedures were revised to
add further clarity in 2014 (_G/ADP/W/284/Rev.1) which resulted in the
retention of all unanswered written questions covering legislative
notifications under review, on the agendas of the Committee's meetings until
written answers are submitted. Legislative notifications are formatted and
circulated by the Secretariat upon receipt.
ii. Notifications
of domestic authorities under Article 16.5
10._
Article 16.5 of the Anti-Dumping
Agreement calls for notification of domestic authorities competent to initiate
and conduct Anti-Dumping
investigations. This notification requirement can be
fulfilled by providing to the Committee the name, address, telephone and fax
numbers, and e-mail address(es) of the investigating authority. There is no
standard format for such notifications.
11._
The Secretariat circulates
prior to each meeting an updated list of Members' authorities competent to
conduct Anti-Dumping
investigations as notified by Members in _G/ADP/N/14/… series.
iii. Notifications
of Anti-Dumping Actions: semi-annual reports and ad hoc notifications
12._ Ad hoc Notifications regarding all preliminary or
final Anti-Dumping actions taken by Members must be submitted to the Committee
without delay (Article 16.4). In addition, notifications pertaining to
Anti-Dumping actions must be submitted semi‑annually (Article 16.4).
13._ In the
area of notifications of Anti-Dumping actions, the ADP Committee developed, in
1995, a format for the submission of the semi-annual reports of Anti-Dumping
investigations and actions taken by Members (_G/ADP/1). In
the same year, it also developed a minimum information format for ad hoc
notifications of Anti-Dumping actions (_G/ADP/2). In
2008, the ADP Committee revised the semi‑annual report format, including a
detailed set of guidelines to make the format more user‑friendly and accurate (_G/ADP/1/Rev.1). In
addition, in 2006 the ADP Committee developed new guidelines for the minimum
information format for ad hoc notifications. These guidelines include a
non‑exhaustive list of the types of Anti-Dumping actions to be notified by
Members (_G/ADP/2/Rev.1). The
guidelines were updated in 2009 to encourage additional transparency (_G/ADP/2/Rev.2). In
2015, the Secretariat delivered two presentations on how to use the formats,
the slides of which as well as the recording of the presentations remain online
to date and are accessible to all delegations.
14._ In 2009,
a streamlining process of the different types of notifications was conducted,
which yielded two important decisions by the ADP Committee. The first was the
decision to create a one-time notification format for Members that do not have
investigating authorities and have never imposed Anti-Dumping measures. For
Members in this category, this one-time notification replaces the obligation to
provide a nil notification of Anti-Dumping actions every six months. This is a
tangible improvement that both provides transparency and assists Members, that
fall in that category, with fulfilling this notification obligation and
obviates the repeated submission of nil notifications. Currently, forty-six
Members belong in this category. The second ADP Committee decision taken in
this context required all Members to submit all their Anti‑Dumping
notifications electronically, in an effort to do away with paper submissions.
15._
In addition to the circulation
of the semi-annual reports, a list developed by the Secretariat reflecting the
status of these notifications is circulated prior to each meeting. The
Secretariat also issues monthly reports containing information on the different
ad hoc notifications received from Members and provides the electronic version of such documents to delegates and other
government officials, upon request.
i. Engagement
with Members
16._ The Secretariat reaches out systematically to all Members that have not submitted
their notifications to encourage submission in time for circulation and review
at the upcoming meetings.
17._
In addition, the
Secretariat regularly receives many delegations (Geneva
and capital-based) and responds to all queries related to the notification
processes and the use of relevant data portals.
18._ In the context of the reform of the
functioning of the ADP Committee conducted in 2023, training sessions on the functioning of the ADP Committee and the
Members' notifications obligations are being held twice a year. The
presentations made and the video/audio recording of those sessions have been
made available on the ADP Committee WTO webpage for Members to consult.
19._
Moreover, the Secretariat maintains a Technical Cooperation
Handbook and sample notifications
on its dedicated webpage in all three WTO languages. These resources, along
with the instructions integrated into the Trade Remedies Data Portal, ensure that Members are continuously supported outside of the
scheduled technical assistance events.
ii. Digital
Tools and Portals
20._
The Secretariat has been involved in a series of
projects aimed at digitizing the trade remedy notification process and
improving the way information on the use of trade remedy measures is compiled,
stored and presented to Members. A major development in this regard was the
official launch, in 2021, of the Anti-Dumping Portal which
allows Members to electronically create and submit semi-annual reports through
a dedicated e-platform, while minimizing effort and reducing reporting errors;
and the later addition of the "Explore Data" function, which provides
online access to all information submitted by Members in their semi-annual
reports. The Secretariat has given presentations, demonstrations and training
sessions tailored to the needs of individual delegations to increase Members'
awareness of the Portal and its functionality. The
Portal is used extensively by Members to submit their semi-annual reports.
21._
In parallel, the Secretariat has upgraded and restructured the Anti-Dumping database, which has required
intensive work with individual Members to clean up past records in those
databases. This work has culminated in the development of the Trade
Remedies Data Portal,
a searchable database of information on trade remedy actions that presents the
information notified in semi-annual reports in an accessible, customizable and
user-friendly manner. The Data Portal was presented to Members at the ADP
Committee meeting in October 2022 and went live on 1 November 2022.
22._ The Secretariat has also developed
a separate webpage for the ADP Committee where all
information pertaining to its work and functioning can be found, including all
the different presentations on the submission of notifications and the
functioning of the portal for submission of semi-annual reports.
23._ In addition, the most recent
statistics, based on information from Members' semi-annual reports, are made
available on the WTO's dedicated Anti-Dumping webpage.
iii. Reminders,
Deadline Management and Annual Reports
24._ The
Secretariat circulates after each meeting a "deadlines document"
summarizing key upcoming deadlines for notification submissions and responses
to questions raised during the ADP Committee meetings. This supports timely
submission of notifications, allows delegations to
recapitulate the deadlines for answers to questions raised in connection to the
last meeting and indicates the future deadlines for documentation to be
submitted in connection with the next meeting.
25._ Calls and reminders for the submission of
semi-annual reports are regularly circulated twice prior to each notification
cycle.
26._ Furthermore, in advance of the Committee's October
meeting each year, the Secretariat circulates a draft of the annual report for
Members' review. This report includes a series of tables that present the
status of various types of notifications—highlighting both those submitted by
Members and those still outstanding.
27._ At every regular meeting of the
ADP Committee, the Chair raises the issue of missing notifications under each
agenda item pertaining to different notification obligations and strongly urges
Members to fulfil their notification obligations. The Chair's call for
notifications and the subsequent discussions are reflected in the minutes of
the meetings and referred to in the annual reports of the ADP Committee. This call to action is reiterated across all notification categories:
legislative notifications, semi-annual reports, and ad hoc notifications
of Anti-Dumping actions.
28._
No proposals or suggestions were made by any Member at the
informal consultations held on 29 September 2025. Thus, there are no
additional steps approved by the Committee to report in this respect.
__________