Legal and Doctrinal Nature of the Countervailing Duties

Abstract

Countervailing duties are called, at the legislative level, as aprovechamientos and also as non-tariff measures, generating an amphibological problem around their legal nature that can trigger confusion in law students of Foreign Trade, however, in different doctrinal denominations are found points of semantic convergence that are useful to identify the compatibility or incompatibility of both situations with respect to the object of the countervailing duties, finally contributing to the interpretation of the existing applicable regulations. In this context, a doctrinal legal analysis is developed in order to identify that convergence determined by semantic bridges between the concepts of countervailing duties, aprovechamientos, and non-tariff measures, as well as their respective differences. This article uses the legal method of systematic interpretation because it represents the most diligent way to examine the legislation applicable to countervailing duties, additionally the method of hermeneutic interpretation is also used to analyze the doctrinal texts applicable to the case, the above by means of the indirect documentary technique, because it turns out, ideal in this investigation design.