Combed Cotton Yarn Exports of Pakistan to the US: A Dispute Settlement Case

On December 24, 1998 the Government of Pakistan (GOP) received a Call Notice from the US Government for consultation regarding the establishment of quantitative restraints on Pakistani exports of Combed Cotton Yarn (Category 301). The basis of this was an allegation on the part of the US that the exports of Pakistan were causing verifiable harm to the US textile sector. The legal grounds employed by the US were the Transitional Safeguard Measures sanctioned under Article 6 of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing of the WTO.1 This was the first time in the trade history of Pakistan that a case went through all the stages of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.2 After the failure of bilateral consultations, the first stage of the case, Pakistan had to refer its case to the Textile Monitoring Board (TMB) and finally to the Dispute Settlement Board (DSB) of the WTO.