With the WTO Appellate Body defunct, how can India protect domestic manufacturing from dumping while staying WTO-compliant? Discuss.

Subsidy-driven overcapacity is a growing threat to fair-trade economies. The OECD projects global steel excess capacity of 745 million tonnes by 2028 [1]. G20 trade ministers reviewed this threat at Milwaukee in 2026 [2][3]. The Appellate Body (AB) has been paralysed since 2019, so India must protect its industry through WTO rules, not unilateral protectionism.

Why the AB vacuum makes protection harder

• Appeal into the void: a party that loses at the panel stage can appeal to the non-functional AB, so the ruling never becomes binding. India's duties get legal cover but no final ruling.
• Scale of subsidies: in 2024, the median Chinese steel firm received 15 times the subsidies of producers elsewhere, measured against total assets [1].
• Circumvention: China's semi-finished steel exports to Southeast Asia rose 300% in 2025. This lets the steel bypass duties aimed at one country [4].

India's WTO-compliant toolkit

• Safeguard duty (Agreement on Safeguards): needs only a sudden surge in imports, not proof of dumping. India imposed a 12% provisional safeguard duty on steel flat products in 2025 [5], supported by DGTR's final findings [6].
• Anti-dumping duty (Anti-Dumping Agreement) and countervailing duty (SCM Agreement): these are evidence-based and firm-specific, so they can be defended even before a panel.
• Anti-circumvention probes: DGTR can trace the true origin of goods and close the Southeast Asian route [4].
• Shared evidence: GFSEC members are building a framework for joint action against non-market policies [4]. Pooled subsidy data would make India's countervailing duty cases faster and stronger.
• Institutional reform: India keeps demanding that the two-tier dispute settlement system be restored [7].

Limits India must manage

• Cost to users: a 12% duty raises input costs for steel-using MSMEs, such as auto-component makers.
• Credibility: National Steel Policy 2017 targets 300 MT of capacity against about 255 MT of production by 2030-31 [8]. India must keep this gap tied to demand, or it could itself be accused of overcapacity.
• Symptom, not cause: duties only shift surplus steel to other markets; they do not remove it.

India's best shield therefore combines fast safeguards, evidence-based anti-dumping and countervailing duties, and close watch on circumvention, all grounded in WTO agreements. Safeguards should serve as a time-bound bridge while Indian industry becomes more competitive. At the same time, India should build G20 coalitions to restore two-tier dispute settlement. This would strengthen a rules-based, development-friendly trading order in line with SDG 9.