Bias in the International Trade Administration: The Need for Impartial Decisionmakers in United States Antidumping Proceedings

Abstract

This article suggests that Congress should enact legislation requiring the Department of Commerce International Trade Administration (ITA) to employ Administrative Law Judges, operating under the rubric of the Administrative Procedure Act, in administering its antidumping proceedings. This recommendation responds to concerns of many in the international trade community who believe that the ITA's antidumping proceedings are patently biased and unfair. This belief is based on the agency's failure to provide parties with an impartial tribunal - as demonstrated, among other indicia, by the telling statistic that the ITA now implausibly finds fully 97% of the foreign companies it investigates guilty of dumping. By providing decisionmakers who are sufficiently independent and insulated from potentially biased agency influence, such a measure would alleviate much of the basis for the trade community's damaging perception that the ITA is unfairly biased and overly vulnerable to political pressure in administering antidumping cases.

Keywords: antidumping and countervailing duty, International Trade Administration, International Trade Commission, administrative law judge