Research On The Export Protection Measures On China's Resources Under GATT Article XX

Resource is an important material foundation for the human society's survival and development, and is also the focus of the current international politics, economy, military and diplomacy. Especially in the context of global financial crisis and the economy is hoped to recover fully, the natural resources trade occupies a pivotal position in the international trade.Since the reform and opening up, due to the abuse of natural resources have long been dug indiscriminately, developed repeatedly and sold cheaply, the natural resources in China is wasted very seriously. To face the danger of the natural resources to be depleted, and to sustain the economy development, China is forced to take measures to safeguard the exports of natural resources. However, the natural resources export restrictions and other relevant measures adopted by China as the largest developing trade member damaged the relevant economic benefits of other WTO member states, and caused a series of trade disputes. In 2004, due to the dissatisfaction with China's coke export quotas and other restrictions, the EU appealed to WTO Dispute Settlement Body, and China made concessions to end the case. In 2009, three member states of WTO, the United States, European Union and Mexico appealed to WTO Dispute Settlement Body to China's exports restriction of natural materials.Natural resource export trade dispute is essentially the dispute for the national interest, and if the international trade dispute is offered to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, it is to represent fully as legal norms. To defend its sovereignty over natural resources and the right to exploit natural resources, the most feasible way for China is to invoke GATT Article XX and other general exceptions clauses to appeal to WTO Dispute Settlement Body based on legal means.The article uses the standard methods of analysis and case studies which are dedicated to the study of China's export trade protection measures on natural resources. To explain the conditions applicable to GATT Article XX (g) and the preface of GATT Article XX, the article analyses firstly the legal problems with traditional norms of standard analysis, then tries to spread out the analysis on the typical cases of import and export restrictions during GATT/WTO period, which are the innovations of the article. For the 2004 "China-EU trade disputes of coke ", the article offer a feasibility analysis on the export safeguards of natural resources based on the preceding analysis according to GATT ArticleⅩⅩ. Finally, to address China's export protection of natural resources, the article offers some superficial measures proposed to start a valuable discussion.The basic framework of the article is:The first chapter is the introduction, which describes successively the background and significance of the topics in the article, the research ideas and research methods, and the innovations and inadequacies in the article.ChapterⅡanalyses the legal norms on export limits of natural materials in WTO system, and introduce successively China's restrictions on exports of natural resources and the main disputes involved in the case, and offer a legal analysis on China's natural resource exports protection based respectively on export restrictions, export taxes and the applicability from GATT ArticleⅩⅩto "Accession Protocol".ChapterⅢexplains the relevant issues about GATT ArticleⅩⅩ. First is the explanation to GATT ArticleⅩⅩ(g):The article argues that to successfully invoke GATT ArticleⅩⅩ(g), China's government must pay attention to three aspects. The first aspect is to address exhaustible natural resources, the second aspect is to address the conservation of exhaustible natural resources, and the third aspect is that the measures are exerted synchronously with domestic production or consumption. The following is the explanation to the preface of GATT ArticleⅩⅩ:the first part explains the purpose and function of the preface; the second part is devoted to introduce the logic application sequence of the preamble and GATT ArticleⅩⅩ(g); the third part explains GATT ArticleⅩⅩon four aspects.ChapterⅣdoes some feasibility analyses on the export protection of natural resources based on GATT ArticleⅩⅩ, which offers China-EU trade dispute of coke as an example:to review firstly China-EU trade dispute of coke, then to offer a conformity analysis about GATT Article XX and the relevant measures involved in the case.Chapter V analyses relevant countermeasures about China's natural resources export:the first part describes the importance of making sure the restrictive measures of resources export comply with GATT Article XX, the second part advocates that the natural resources protection should be appealed to WTO Dispute Settlement Body, the third part suggests that China's government should establish mechanisms of the protection of scarce resources to lay the foundation for limiting export legitimately, the forth part emphasizes that the domestic legislation about resource protection measures should be improved in line with WTO law.Chapter VI is the conclusion, which offers a brief summary on the basic content of the article, and hopes the countermeasures in the article have a certain significance to the imminent case about rare earth and future potential international trade disputes.