DR.

RAM MAHOHAR LOHIYA

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

FINAL DRAFT:

TRADING EDUCATION: RESOLVING DUMPING ISSUES BETWEEN MOROCCO

AND TUNISIA
SUBMITTED BY: UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF:

HIMANSHU VERMA, SUYASH GUPTA,

ANURAG CHUDHARY MS. PRIYA ANURAGINI

ROLL NO: 150101055, 150101146,150101024 FACULTY OF LAW

SECTION ‘A’AND ‘B’ DR. RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA

SEMESTER VII NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

B.A. LLB (Hons.) LUCKNOW

The WTO stated in a statement on Tuesday, June 10 that "Tunisia has begun initial
consultation with Morocco in the WTO on the anti-dumping duties collected by Morocco on
imports of school books originating in Tunisia". Tunisia "claims that Morocco has acted
inconsistently against a number of provisions in the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement." This is
Tunisia's first dispute resolution at the WTO. Tunisia and Morocco, however, are involved in
several free trade agreements, including the Agadira Agreement, which entered into force in
2007, and Tunisia has no fees on Moroccan products..

The Agadir Agreement was formally signed on the 25th of February 2003 by Egypt,
Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan in the city of Rabat, although it was introduced in May 2001 in
Agadir, hence its name. The participating states expressed their intention to set up a Free
Trade Area among themselves. Prior to the signature of the Agadir Agreement, Morocco,
Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia had signed a quadripartite free-trade agreement on the 11th of
January 2003. That agreement calls for the progressive dismantling of customs duties on
industrial products, with a view of reaching complete suppression on the 1st of January 2006.

Tunisian notebook, the true culprit1

An importer of the Tunisian notebook, the preferred anonymity, tells us that Moroccan
producers “can not afford to deliver the standard laptops ". Moroccan industrialists try to
attribute their troubles to the unfair competition of the Tunisians
"We have invested 78 Mdhs in production tools since 2009 ", defends Abdeljalil Benddane,
General Manager of MAPAF. To prove it, the leader of the largest national manufacturer of
exercise books opens the doors of his factory in Casablanca. He proudly shows us his
recently installed machines. “We have the same German machines as the Tunisians and
practically the same production costs," he assures us.
To the Tunisian industrialists, the margin they are releasing from the sale of notebooks in
Morocco is due to a “best strategy of raw material purchasing ". The director-general of
MAPAF recognizes that Tunisians can achieve economies of scale and " that they buy larger
quantities because they have a larger production .
Medpaper on the maneuver?
An allegation made by Mohcine Sefiroui, CEO of Medpaper, contradicts. "We do not want to
protect our market, we want fair competition," he explains. He continues: ”We have already

1
https://vaaju.com/franceeng/tunisia-attaches-suits-to-morocco-at-the-wto-in-school-books/
invested more than 250 million dirhams in 2011-2012, but our production tool has just 45%
of its capacity ," we trust.
If Tunisian producers engage in unfair competition in the Moroccan market, why have only
three Moroccan companies filed a complaint? According to Mohcine Sefrioui "most
producers are SMEs, they have no analytical accounting and it is very expensive to file a
complaint, these companies do not have the resources to recruit a consulting firm.” After the
producers' defense “Moroccan exercise books disappeared because of this unfair
competition.”
For the three claimants, it is the whole national branch of the makers of exercise books who
would simply risk bankruptcy. Abdeljalil Benddane raises the alarm: " Textbooks account for
40% of our business, and competition pulls down prices . We lose money in this branch of If
we had no other ancillary activities, such as school supplies or A4 reams if we were dead. "
Will the consumer pay the price?2
Tunisian imports are drying up due to the measures of the ministry, the local producers will
be able to compensate for this deficiency? An importer is alarming: “In the next school year,
we are approaching a shortage of issues." For the director of MAPAF, on the contrary: “We
just want to reach our full capacity." Mohcine Sefiroui tells us, “We are not against
importing notebooks from other sources, such as Portugal and Spain. We are industrialists;
we are not in logic of rising prices, but increase the ability to activate the economies of scale.

HOW REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENT ABOLISH ANTI-DUMPING

In recent years, the number of regional trade agreements has proliferated. The great majority,
about 90 %, of the regional trade agreements allow member countries to use anti-dumping
measures against one another. There are only 11 regional trade agreements that have
eliminated the use of anti-dumping measures. Due to the fact that about 75 % of all regional
trade agreements include provisions on competition rules, it may be possible to replace anti-
dumping measures with competition rules if there is emphasis placed on this during the trade
negotiations. The elimination of anti-dumping measures in regional trade agreements is also
in line with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) provisions. The European Union (EU) is
probably the best example of a regional integration scheme that has, in practice, replaced the
use of anti-dumping measures between the member states with common competition rules
and a common competition authority to enforce these rules. In the case of the EU, the

2
https://vaaju.com/franceeng/tunisia-attaches-suits-to-morocco-at-the-wto-in-school-books/
harmonisation of other policy areas has also contributed to the possibility to eliminate the use
of anti-dumping measures between the member states following the enlargement3. This report
argues that the inclusion of competition rules and other forms of policy harmonisation
between member countries is a possible substitute for the use of anti-dumping measures in
regional trade agreements. The possibility of replacing anti-dumping measures with
competition rules and other relevant harmonisation provisions should be considered by the
EU and other countries in future regional trade agreements. Regional trade agreements could,
for example, establish a common competition authority in order to render the provisions on
competition meaningful. If successful, the replacement of anti-dumping measures with
competition rules in regional trade agreements could, ultimately, be seen as a stepping stone
and an example to follow in multilateral trade negotiations. ‘Unfair competition’ should be
addressed by efficient competition rules rather than the use of anti-dumping measures.

The most active parties today in eliminating anti-dumping measures in RTA negotiations,
apart from the EU itself in its successive enlargements, are the EFTA (3 RTAs), the EU (3
RTAs), Chile (2 RTAs) and China (2 RTAs). The promotion of “conditions of fair
competition” between RTA member countries is considered as one of the principal objectives
of the RTAs . In Australia-New Zealand, EFTA-Chile and EFTA-Singapore, the elimination
of anti-dumping measures between the parties is specifically linked to the application of
provisions on competition. At the EU enlargements, the accession countries are required to
adjust their legislation in all fields to the EU’s acquis communautaire. These harmonisation
rules imply stringent conditions with regard to production, labour rights, health standards,
environmental standards, consumer quality standards etc. and create the prerequisites for ‘a
level playing field’.

The WTO allows member countries to establish RTAs. The establishment of RTAs, in
particular, free trade areas and customs unions, is an accepted exemption from the WTO
principle on ‘most favoured nation’4.

In RTAs, it is possible for members countries to grant preferential treatment to products

originating in other RTA members countries if this treatment is consistent with Article XXIV

3
Solano, O and A Sennekamp, 2006, Competition Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements, OECD Trade Policy
Working Papers No. 31, OECD Publishing, France as cited in
https://www.kommers.se/Documents/dokumentarkiv/publikationer/2013/rapporter/report-eliminating-anti-
dumping-measures_webb.pdf
4
Bienen, D et al., 2013, Does Antidumping Address “Unfair” Trade? The European Union’s Experience, Trade
and Development Discussion Paper No. 01/2013, bkp Development Research & Consulting, Munich, Germany.
of the GATT. RTAs that are established with the aim of liberalizing trade between their
members are often accompanied by trade defence instruments that provide the member
countries with a “safety net” that allows them to take defensive measures in order to tempo-
rarily restrict the access of other RTA members to their markets. The WTO allows its
member countries to make use of trade defence instruments provided that certain conditions
are fulfilled. The trade defence instruments are:
(i) anti-dumping measures against dumped imports,
(ii) anti-subsidy measures against subsidized imports and
(iii) safeguard measures against sudden import increases.
In some RTAs, the trade defence instruments are replaced by competition rules, state aid
regulations, structural funds that aim to reduce regional disparities or other related policies.
This is mostly the case in those RTAs that have reached a higher level of economic and
political integration.

It is sometimes claimed that the elimination of trade defence measures, in particular, anti-
dumping measures and anti-subsidy measures, is a requirement according to Article XXIV of
the GATT. In Paragraph 8(a) and (b) of Article XXIV of the GATT, RTA members are
required to eliminate duties and other regulations restricting trade.

The Education for All (EFA) movement was originally launched by UNESCO, UNICEF,
World Bank, UN Development Programme and UN Population Fund in the 1990s. The
unprecedented cooperation by these five convenors over the course of the coming years
paved the way for what has become the most widely known set of international goals in
education – the EFA goals5. These originators of EFA insisted on making education a top
priority on the development agenda, setting not only a good example for UN cooperation, but
also mobilizing governments, civil society, education professionals and, to a lesser degree,
the private sector. Their work resulted in the World Conference on Education in Jomtien in
1990 being truly visionary and agenda setting: education was recognised as being more than
just access to primary education, and also addressed the basic learning needs of all children,
youth, and adults.
The renewed call for action motivated the 5 Convenors to take the initiative and launch
the EFA 2000 Assessment, which managed in a reasonably short time to mobilize more than

5
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/education/brief/education-for-all accessed on 07 November 2018
170 countries in doing a standardized assessment of education6. In the Millennium
Development Goals, established in 2000, the world’s governments committed to achieving
universal access to free, quality and compulsory primary education by 2015. In ‘A World Fit
for Children’, the outcome document from the United Nations General Assembly Special
Session on Children in 2002, governments reaffirmed these commitments and agreed to a
range of strategies and actions to achieve them. More ambitious targets have been established
in many regions. Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, are increasingly
making school attendance compulsory for children of pre-primary age. These various
strategies have had an effect: In 1948, when education was recognized as a human right, only
a minority of the world’s children had access to any formal education; now a majority of
them go to school, and participation in formal education beyond the elementary stages has
increased.

With reference to the current situation and allegation posed by morocco on Tunisia, the
argument of morocco fall short in defending its stand. Morocco which incorporates right to
education as human rights has failed to provide basic education facilities and the same has
been exported by Tunisia at lower price. So the arrangement that Tunisia is dumping its
educational workbooks in morocco will not stand vitiated in light of honouring the spirit of
right to education.

CONCLUSION

In this paper we discussed on how to eliminate anti dumping measures. Our first and
foremost issue was EDUCTION FOR ALL. In this we basically talked on removing the
imposition of anti dumping measures on education books. Education which is our basic
human right should not be alienated on the name of protectionist policy of any government. If
anyone in the world is able to provide us cheaper resources on education we should not
impose any protectionist policy in the name of expanding our economy. Our next issue was
on how regional trade agreement has helped in removing anti dumping measures and
achieving fair competition and provide level play fielding. Example of European Union was
best suited to regional trade agreement which has removed anti dumping measure and
promoted competition.

6
United Nations Educational, Scientific c and Cultural Organization, ‘Regional Overview: Latin America and the
Caribbean’, prepared for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007, UNESCO, Paris, 2006, p. 2. As cited in
https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/A_Human_Rights_Based_Approach_to_Education_for_All.pdf on 07
November 2018
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 https://www.law360.com/articles/1061503/tunisia-launches-wto-dispute-over-

moroccan-book-duties

 https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/A_Human_Rights_Based_Approach_to_Ed

ucation_for_All.pdf

 https://www.eurochamvn.org/sites/default/files/uploads/pdf/Analysis%20of%20Anti-

dumping%20Use%20in%20Free%20Trade%20Agreements_0.pdf

 https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds555_e.htm