Title:
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Implementation of the WTO agreements in China : legal and regulatory reforms
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The implementation of the WTO Agreements in China has raised great international
interest as a result of China's increasing importance in the world economy and the
unprecedented wide range of accession commitments that China has assumed. The
thesis assesses the implementation process during three years of accession and proposes
legal solutions to improve the implementation status at three levels: WTO supervision,
the direct effect of WTO Agreements in China, and the national implementing
measures.
The thesis argues that WTO supervision is less effective than expected because the
Accession Protocol lacks detailed operational rules to monitor China's implementation
process. While the WTO Agreements automatically become a part of PRC law, China
has rejected their direct invocability before courts for policy reasons, following the
practices of major WTO Members. It is therefore argued that the key to the WTO
implementation in China should be national implementing measures. Based on
qualitative and quantitative analysis of three key domestic regimes: market access,
domestic regulation and dispute resolution, this thesis concludes that from the textual
perspective most concrete WTO commitments (but especially those on market access)
have been complied with in the Chinese case, but that the domestic regulatory process
has serious problems in terms of uniformity and reasonableness. In addition, the dispute
resolution regime does not achieve the necessary degree of judicial independence
mandated under the WTO Agreements.
The study suggests alternative directions for improving the WTO implementation in China. At the international level, the WTO and other Members must help the PRC
government formulate more detailed operational rules to comply with the accession
commitments (especially in the regimes of domestic regulation and dispute resolution).
At the domestic level, China must fundamentally reform its institutional infrastructure
and mechanisms for implementation. Suggested solutions include the enactment of an
Administrative Procedure Law for due regulatory process and the establishment of
International Trade Courts with the requisite judicial independence and essential
expertise for resolving trade disputes. As a result, the thesis significantly enhances the
understanding of the interaction between China's legal and regulatory reforms and the
WTO implementation. Moreover, by analysing key issues in the WTO implementation
process in the Chinese case, the study throws new light on important areas of
international economic law.
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