A World Trade Organisation panel backed South Korea on Tuesday in a challenge to a controversial US method for calculating duties on unfairly priced imports, after the United States offered no defence in the dispute. The ruling is the latest in a series of defeats for the United States over zeroing, a method of calculating anti-dumping duties that is opposed by all other WTO members.
The consistent approach by WTO dispute panels and WHO's appellate body made the US Department of Commerce discontinue zeroing last month in order to comply with the rulings. But US officials say they believe the appellate body has overstepped its powers in condemning zeroing, and are pushing in the current Doha round of trade negotiations for zeroing to be formally recognised.
Doha will replace existing rules deriving from the previous Uruguay round negotiations. In the ruling published on Tuesday, the dispute panel backed the US contention that previous WTO panel and appellate ruling did not form binding precedents, but still concluded that the United States had broken trade rules.
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