The United States is pursing $450 million in annual compensation from India because India has not fully complied with previous World Trade Organization (WTO) rulings regarding India’s ban of U.S. poultry. In a meeting this week in Geneva at the WTO headquarters, India stated that it had already fully complied with previous WTO rulings in the dispute and that the U.S. request for retaliatory action had no legal basis.
India asked the WTO Dispute Settlement Body for an investigation into its compliance first instead of immediately conducting arbitration on the U.S. request for retaliation, an India government official said.
India placed a ban in 2007 on U.S. poultry products under the guise of preventing low pathogenic avian influenza. The United States brought the dispute to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and WTO agreed with U.S. claims declaring India’s import ban inconsistent with its international obligations and required India to modify its import ban on U.S. poultry products. The WTO ruled that, if India failed to respond, the Unites States may impose retaliatory trade measures.
