Anti-Dumping Laws and Pakistan’s Textile Exports: Legal, Economic, and Policy Implications under the WTO Framework

Abstract

The backbone of Pakistan’s export economy, the textile sector of the country, has been consistently targeted by AD measures exerted by the global north, more specifically, indulging in the liberalization of the textile sector across the globe under the WTO’s framework.  This research offers a cohesive political, financial, and legal policy framework analysis of the execution of AD regulations regarding textile sector imports of Pakistan, drawing on quantitative literature from focal cases entailing bed linen, cotton yarn, and unbleached fabric. This study also depicts that while anti-dumping actions are legally justified as solutions against unfair business practices, their real-world application frequently depicts methodological and procedural prejudices that operate as disguised protectionism. Based on the WTO Agreement on Anti-Dumping Practices as a benchmark of assessment, this research mainly investigates the identification of causation benchmarks, margins of dumping, and injury evaluation, demonstrating the discretionary space exploited by appraising bodies in importing regions. The examination indicates that AD measures impose indirect and direct costs on Pakistan’s exporters at a significant level, optimize economic risk, distort pricing methods, and discourage industrial optimization investment in the longer run. Such actions exhibit adverse implications on independent policy formulation, export earnings, and stability of foreign exchange at the macroeconomic level. This research further analyzes the institutional and legal response of Pakistan at the domestic level, detecting anomalies in the infrastructure of data, legal capabilities, and preventive governance of trade. It shows that robust resistance to AD protectionism needs a multi-dimensional framework encompassing proactive engagement, amalgamation of business policy and competition, and organizational strengthening within the WTO, and joint action with the global south. The results show that without optimized preparedness and practical reforms of AD disciplines at the domestic level, such actions will continue to undermine the growth objectives of the trading systems at the multi-lateral level.