earticle

영어

Subsidy disputes continue to take the center stage of the global trade disputes. China and the United States accuse each other of illegal subsidization for their major industries, respectively. The European Union and the United States are also engaged in high profile subsidy disputes involving large civilian aircrafts. The 2008 financial crisis further stoked the desire and necessity, in many countries, of providing subsidies to key industries. Korea has also been one of the main targets of subsidy allegations from its trading partners. This trend seems to continue for the time being. The SCM Agreement under the WTO regime sets forth basic rules to regulate subsidy disputes and countervailing duty investigations. While dealing with subsidy disputes lodged at the WTO over the years, the Appellate Body of the WTO has interpreted key provisions of the SCM Agreement and pronounced important jurisprudence in this area. As a result, clarifications and elaborations have been achieved through various subsidy disputes. The subsidy disputes so far and the accumulations of jurisprudence, however, have been mainly about “the financial contribution by the government” and “specificity.” Discussions on the concept of “benefit,” which is the third element of a subsidy in the SCM Agreement, have been relatively lukewarm: this issue has been treated as a side issue in subsidy disputes, or the existence or non-existence of the benefit has been decided through superficial discussion of evidence. Since benefit is one of the elements of a subsidy, its existence or non-existence directly determines the existence or non-existence of a subsidy within the meaning of the SCM Agreement. So, this is a critical issue in any subsidy dispute. Nonetheless, this issue has not received sufficient attention that it deserves, other than sporadic reference or conclusive statement by the reviewing panels and the Appellate Body. But recent subsidy disputes increasingly require more analytical analyses of the benefit issue. In fact, the concept of benefit, as it is provided for in Articles 2 and 14 of the SCM Agreement and as the issue has been raised in subsidy disputes so far, tells us that this is quite a complex issue which touches upon the economic and commercial decision making process in the relevant industries. More than anything else, this concept requires us to look into the real market and how the decision makers make a decision in the real market. In other words, it asks us to evaluate the situation of the market in the relevant industries, the situation the recipient was in before the alleged subsidization, the situation the recipient is in after the alleged subsidization and the situation in which the recipient would be in without such subsidization. Answers to these questions can only be found by examining how rational policy makers, manufacturers, investors or creditors would behave under similar circumstances. No one could offer easy answers to these questions. That is particularly so, because the variables and consideration factors in the market have become so more diverse and volatile than before. At the same time, the decision makers (whether the WTO panels or investigating authorities) are not usually privy to the inside information and dilemmatic choices that the economic entities and governments face when they make decisions in the real setting for a policy, project or action. As such, this issue of benefit is not amenable to easy evaluation and quick determination by government officials or WTO panels. Therefore, future discussions in the subsidy sector should focus on developing and fine-tuning the concept of benefit. The current SCM Agreement is too skeletal to adequately deal with the current subsidy disputes. Unfortunately, the DDA negotiations also do not seem to have paid enough attention to this issue. The elaboration and clarification of the benefit concept would help WTO Members avoid unnecessary subsidy disputes in the future. Such elaboration and clarification would also provide guidelines for the Members to draft their policies and projects in the future and for the panels to make a decision in the upcoming subsidy disputes.

한국어

WTO 보조금 협정은 회원국 상호간에 무역왜곡적 효과를 보유한 정부 정책 또는 프로그램을 시행하는 것을 금지함으로써 자유공정무역체제의 확립을 위한 주요 통상 기제로서의 역할을 수행하고 있다. 이러한 무역왜곡적 효과는 특히, 동 협정상 규정에 따른 보조금의 주요 구성요건인 경제적 혜택의 평가를 통해 분명하게 확인된다. 경제적 혜택의 평가란 수혜자가 정부로부터 재정적 기여를 제공받음으로써 궁극적으로 혜택을 향유하게 되었는지에 대한 고찰을 의미한다. 현 보조금 협정 제14조가 상정하고 있는 바에 따르면 경제적 혜택을 평가하기 위해서는 시장 비교기준 법리가 적용된다. 시장 비교기준의 법리란 해당 거래 행위와 가장 관련된 시장을 찾아서, 그 안에서 타당한 기준을 구하고 이와의 비교를 통해 경제적 혜택을 평가하는 것을 의미한다. 따라서 시장 비교기준에 따른 평가의 결과, 수혜자가 시장에서 획득할 수 있는 조건보다 유리한 조건으로 정부로부터 재정적 기여를 제공받았다면 이러한 조건의 차이에 해당하는 만큼 수혜자에 대해 경제적 혜택이 발생하였다고 간주하는 것이다. 이러한 시장 비교기준의 법리의 근저에는 경제적 혜택과 관련한 다양한 법리가 내재하고 있다. 이 가운데 주요 법리의 내용에 따르면 경제적 혜택은 피수혜자 즉, 정부가 아닌 수혜자의 관점에서 평가가 이루어진다. 아울러, 관련 당사국의 시장이 왜곡된 경우 이를 배척하고 역외의 시장을 대체 비교기준으로서 채택할 수 있다. 한편, 당해 거래의 속성상 관련 시장을 구할 수 없는 경우 상업적 합리성이라는 기준에 따라 경제적 혜택을 평가하게 된다. 일견, 이러한 법리들은 경제적 혜택의 외연 내에서 동 개념의 본질을 구성하며 효율적으로 작동되고 있는 것처럼 보인다. 그러나 이러한 법리들은 근본적인 내재적 한계를 지니고 있으며 이로 인해 경제적 혜택의 개념은 아직까지 불투명한 상태로 남아 있다. 이에 본 논문은 시장 비교기준의 맥락에서 보조금 협정상 경제적 혜택 개념이 내포하고 있는 본질적인 문제점이 무엇인지 검토하고 주요 관련 법리의 내재적 한계를 분석하였다.