| dc.description.abstract | The recent rising tension within the multilateral community, including concerns over the effectiveness of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the increasing importance of Global South countries have brought about a rising politicization of national industrial policies geared towards trade protectionism, nationalism and unilateral restrictive measures. As a result, there has been a rapid resort to unfair trade policies and practices that continue to deprive the Member States of a level playing ground, while international trade cooperation crumbles. Many Global South industries, such as the Nigerian industries, have mostly been impacted by the lack of a fair playing ground within the multilateral trading system, compared to the Global North countries. In particular, the trade-distorted practices have made it almost impossible for the less-opportune and vulnerable Global South countries, such as Nigeria to overcome its premature de-industrialization (facilitated by premature exposure to the trade liberalization scheme), as well as attain the balance trade payment envisaged in her trade alliances. It has also widened the power imbalance between developed and developing countries, as well as the structural inequalities that exist within the WTO system. Therefore, it remains doubtful of how successful the WTO system has been in reducing the unfair trade policies and practices among the WTO Members. Also, it is doubtful the extent to which Nigeria’s industrial policies and trade defense structure have been effective in addressing its incapacitated industrial state in light of shortcomings such as lack of functional trade defense structure, skewed trade relations, debt crisis, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, poor policy choice, lack of political will, porous border, unskilled customs officials, inefficient institutions, lack of stakeholders’ engagement, political and economic imperialism, and systematic global economic inequality amongst others, compared to other selected Global South countries and Western nations.
Against this background, this thesis aims to examine the role and effectiveness of the WTO system in reducing the unfair trade policies and practices among the WTO Members. It also examines the efficacy of the Nigerian industrial policies and Anti-dumping structure in a world that continually changes. In so doing, I adopt the TWAIL lens as a theoretical tool to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the WTO Anti-dumping system. I also use the TWAIL lens to analyse the current crisis impeding the effectiveness of the WTO system within the context of the Anti-dumping regime in a changing world, and its impact on developing countries to chart a new course for ensuring the efficiency of the WTO framework. Moreover, I use the TWAIL approach to unpack the inadequacy of the Nigerian trade defense and its inconsistencies with multilateral and regional commitments, within the context of the country’s Anti-dumping system, from a historical and contemporary perspective. To this end, to ensure Nigeria attains a level playing field for her local industries, this thesis also explores the Anti-dumping practices of selected Global South countries such as Brazil, India and South Africa that have successfully utilized the measure to mitigate the declines in their manufacturing output, as well as that of the Canadian Anti-dumping regime (as a Global North country and traditional trade remedy user) to shed light on the divergences in the application of the measures in the Global South-Global North nations. I analysed these selected countries’ trade defense infrastructure to demonstrate their relevance or otherwise as a road map for Nigeria to draw on suitable lessons concerning how to reform Nigeria’s trade defense system and infrastructure to be efficient and usable. | en_US |
