International Trade Regulation

Zelle Hofmann attorneys, in conjunction with their affiliated offices in the People's Republic of China, counsel Chinese clients in international trade matters. These matters include providing advice to China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation on issues pertaining to China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Representative cases are described below.

• Zelle Hofmann attorneys counseled China's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation on, and drafted legislative comments to, the U.S. International Trade Commission's Interim Rules Section 421 and 422 of P.L. 106-286, which rules were amended subsequent to U.S.-China WTO agreement.
• Zelle Hofmann attorneys represented the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals & Chemicals Importers and Exporters and China Iron and Steel Association in the Canadian Safeguard Investigation of Certain Steel Imports. The Canadian International Trade Tribunal rendered a no-injury determination on four of the nine subject product categories. The remedy recommendations are still pending as to the remaining five product categories.
• Zelle Hofmann attorneys represented the China Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation in the matter of the Canadian Automotive Laminated Windshields Originated in or Exported from the People's Republic of China, during the government verification. Subsequent to the verification, the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency held that China's windshield industry is operating under a market economy. This is the first time China has obtained a market economy determination in international trade proceedings in North America. It will serve not only as a precedent for other countries in investigating trade complaints against Chinese producers, but should also encourage Chinese producers to challenge antidumping charges in other countries.

Zelle Hofmann attorneys have routinely provided advice to clients and published comments on Chinese legal developments as a part of their international practice. For example, an article authored by Daniel S. Mason and Athena Jiangxiao Hou that was published in a prominent Asian law journal, Asian Law & Practice, provides an extensive analysis of China's draft Anti-Monopoly Law in light of the U.S. and European experiences in constructing and implementing antitrust laws.

Zelle Hofmann attorneys also have extensive expertise in international trade and environmental law issues. The firm's managing partner in its Washington D.C. office, Durwood Zaelke, has dealt extensively with the GATT/WTO affairs, as well as NAFTA and other bilateral trade agreements, including Jordan, Singapore, and Chile. He has served on numerous U.S. delegations, including at the WTO Ministerial in Seattle in 1998 and in Cancun in September 2003. He was appointed by President Bush, and previously by President Clinton, to serve on the U.S.T.R.'s Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee. He also was appointed to the first National Advisory Committee for the NAFTA's Commission for Environmental Cooperation, where he served two terms. In 1989, Mr. Zaelke founded one of the premier public interest law firms working on trade and environment, the Center for International Environmental Law, with offices in Geneva and Washington, D.C.

Mr. Zaelke has written extensively on trade and environment, including Zaelke, Housman & Orbach, eds., TRADE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: LAW, ECONOMICS, AND POLICY (Island Press 1995), winner of a special award at the 1997 Buenos Aires International Book Fair for its Spanish version, entitled COMERCIO INTERNACIONAL Y MEDIO AMBIENTE: DERECHO, ECONOMIA Y POLITICA (Espacio Editorial, Buenos Aires, June 1995) (translation by Eugenia Bec); Housman, Goldberg, Van Dyke & Zaelke, eds., THE USE OF TRADE MEASURES IN SELECT MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS (United Nations Environment Programme, 1995); Housman & Zaelke, Making Trade and Environmental Policies Mutually Reinforcing: Forging Competitive Sustainability, 23 ENVT'L. L. 545 (1993); Housman & Zaelke, Trade, Environment, and Sustainable Development: A Primer, 15 HASTINGS INT'L & COMP. L. REV. 535 (1992); and Housman & Zaelke, The Collision of the Environment and Trade: The GATT Tuna/Dolphin Decision, 22 E.L.R. 10268 (1992).

Articles & Presentations

• China’s Proposed Anti-Monopoly Law: The U.S. and European Perspectives