South Africa on June 8 joined the ‘escape club’, ‘North, east, west, south, all in the same house’, with all due acknowledgement to the English pop-rock band The Escape Club. It joins the 2026 group of 11 countries and one economic union which together constitute 27 member countries, bringing the total to 38.

The members of the club, with their notified initiations in brackets, are as follows: Australia (1), Canada (2), EU (1), India (1), Madagascar (4), Morocco (1), New Zealand (1), the Philippines (2), Russia (2), South Africa (1), Türkiye (3) and Zimbabwe (2).

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on June 9 made its twenty-first notification for 2026, which was South Africa’s ‘escape club’ notification. In doing so, the WTO has now made such a notification for every month of the year. If you are a regular visitor to https://wto.org, you would recognise its format as “[Country] notifies launch of safeguard investigation on [good description]”.

You might question the reference to the ‘escape club’ and its association with ‘safeguards’. Well, the modern use of ‘safeguards’ is a US invention, used by its states for centuries to restrict imports temporarily and now incorporated into all US trade agreements. It found its way into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1947 through Article XIX (Emergency Action on Imports of Particular Goods), which is a foundational provision. The US’s practice of imposing temporary bans or duties on imported goods originated in medieval Europe, where rulers imposed them when domestic industries or strategic sectors were threatened. For clarification, the Agreement on Safeguards, negotiated later, clarifies and governs the application of Article XIX.

The ‘escape clause’ mechanism, also known as a ‘safety valve’, allows WTO member countries to temporarily restrict imports of a good if a sudden, unexpected surge threatens serious injury to a domestic industry. Yes, as with all legal texts, the devil is in the detail. (Full disclosure, I am not a lawyer, nor do I have any aspiration to be one.) But suffice it to say that the phrases requiring scrutiny are: ‘a sudden’; ‘unexpected surge’ and ‘threatens serious injury’. To be fair, it is the whole sentence; however, breaking it up into chunks might make the message land better.

Regular readers might well note that a ‘safeguard’, or a ‘safeguard measure’, is a ‘fair trade remedy’, which means that it remedies fair trade practices, unlike a dumping duty or a countervailing duty (anti-subsidy), which remedies unfair trade practices. Thus, when a WTO member country’s domestic industry is not able to compete against ‘a sudden, unexpected surge’ in imports, it can turn to a safeguard, which, if imposed, will ultimately restrict all imports of the good.

This raises the question: Which domestic industry needs a safeguard? Any guesses? I am sure that, considering the state of the South African economy, you are spoiled for choice. Let me offer you a hint: the good was first made under the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (140 to 86 BCE). Another hint? It was standardised in its present form in 1922 by the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) under standard code DIN 476 and internationally adopted for its mathematical precision by the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) as ISO 216 in 1975, while South Africa adopted it in 1966. ISO 216 governs the dimensions of sheets of paper used for writing paper, stationery, cards, and some printed documents.

As South Africa is a member of the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), it notified the WTO’s Committee on Safeguards that on June 5, through an International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa Government Gazette notice, it initiated a safeguard investigation on A3 and A4 office paper imported into the Sacu region, lodged by Mondi South Africa, supported by Sappi Southern Africa.

In the notice, Mondi highlighted the effects of South Africa’s commitments under WTO agreements: bound its tariffs on printing and writing paper goods at reduced ceiling levels of 20%; rationalised and reduced tariff protection; and eliminated quantitative import restrictions.

Comment on the safeguard investigation was due by June 25.