KU Law News
KU Law News
Oct. 8, 2009
KU law student publishes article in international trade law journal
Dana Watts
LAWRENCE – A University of Kansas School of Law student has achieved the rare honor of being published in an international law journal before graduating from law school.
Dana Watts, a third-year student from Syracuse, Kan., published “Fair's Fair: Why Congress Should Amend U.S. Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Laws to Prevent ‘Double Remedies’” in Trade, Law and Development, a new academic journal published by National Law University in Jodhpur, India.
“It feels great to be a published author,” Watts said. “The editor of the journal, Shashank Kumar, even wrote to tell me that my article had been cited in a blog by the co-owner of WorldTradeLaw.net, Simon Lester. I used this site several times during my internship at the U.S. Mission to the World Trade Organization. It feels like I've hit the big time.”
Watts wrote about the U.S. Department of Commerce's 2007 decision to begin applying both countervailing duties and antidumping duties to imports from China and other nonmarket economies. Countervailing duties are import taxes applied to offset certain kinds of subsidies given to producers or exporters in the exporting country. Antidumping duties are taxes applied to imported goods that are dumped in an importing country. Dumping occurs when a foreign producer or exporter charges a higher price for a like product in the exporting country than the price it charges for merchandise it ships to the importing country. An antidumping duty makes up the difference between those prices.
Both countervailing duties and antidumping duties are considered remedies against unfair foreign trade, but the simultaneous application of both remedies to nonmarket economies like China has been highly controversial. For 23 years before this decision, the Department of Commerce had applied only antidumping duties to imports from nonmarket economies. In her article, Watts discusses the potential problems of trying to apply simultaneous countervailing duties and antidumping duties to the same imports from nonmarket economies and the legalities of the new policy under both domestic and international law.
For the sake of fairness and to comply with international obligations, Watts argues that Congress should amend U.S. countervailing duty law so that it simply levels the playing field for domestic producers rather than punishing exporters from nonmarket economies.
Raj Bhala, Rice Distinguished Professor at KU Law, said Watts’ article clearly and cogently explores the topic and is of considerable importance today, as the U.S. Court of International Trade considered the controversy in a September case known as GPX Tire.
“She wrote on a highly complex topic with the level of expertise of a seasoned practitioner or scholar,” Bhala said. “She illustrates the world-class talent we are privileged to have at KU Law.”
The journal selected Watts’ article for publication through a routine call for papers. It appears in the inaugural print edition, also available online at http://www.tradelawdevelopment.com.
Trade, Law and Development explores interdisciplinary perspectives on the international legal order, focusing on issues of relevance to the international trading system, environment and development, as well as policy issues. India is a major player in world trade – not only in an economic sense as an exporter and importer of goods and services, but also in a political sense in terms of its role in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations and its pursuit of free trade agreements. The National Law University is a leading law school on the Indian subcontinent.
Watts spent the summer as an intern at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) in Geneva. The Geneva Mission of the USTR handles all matters concerning the World Trade Organization and is a focal point of the work of the USTR.
Before coming to law school, Watts lived and worked in Japan for three years and speaks Spanish. She is the past president of KU’s International Law Society, an active component of the school’s International and Comparative Law Program.
Watts is the daughter of Doug and Becky Wallace of Syracuse. She graduated from Syracuse High School and Pittsburg State University.