Study On The Compliance Mechanism Of The Host States' Legislation With The International Rules And Regulations Of World Expositions

With the topic of Study on the Compliance Mechanism of the Host States'Legislation to the International Rules and Regulations of World Expositions, this dissertation discusses how the host states of World Exposition, under the legal framework of international rules and regulations, observe and follow the international rules while playing an active part in functioning domestic legislation. The thesis consists of seven chapters with a preface and conclusion.Chapter I From Host States'Legislations to International Cooperative Regulation, gives a brief look at the history and development of World Expositions from legal perspectives. During the 160 years since the inception of the modern World Exposition in 1851, nearly half of the history saw the absence of international legislation. The history of World Exposition, therefore, is the how the international cooperative regulation was gradually enhanced. From the failed attempt of Berlin Convention of 1912, to the conclusion of Paris Convention of 1928, and to its five Amendments since it came into effect in 1931, the entire process of World Expositions since the 20th Century has witnessed international legislative efforts.Despite a century's development, the international community has not yet concluded a comprehensive, rigorous and detailed international legislation on World Expositions. For one thing, since the conclusion of the Paris Convention, international efforts were focused on key issues including defining the categories and the frequency of World Expositions, in order to react directly to the situation where World Expositions were held in a frequent but disorderly way. Meanwhile, some issues such as customs clearance, entry into and exit from the host country, and preferential tax policies involved in organizing and hosting World Exposition relate to sovereignty of some countries, therefore it is difficult to put in place a uniform international rule. Chapter II Legislation in Host Country under International Cooperative Legislation, defines the characteristics of the international rules and regulations on World Expositions, analyzes the functions of the legislation in the host country under the international regulation, and thus presents the theory of Compliance Mechanism of the host states' legislation with the international rules and regulations.While organizing or hosting World Expositions, the host country shall guarantee that the international regulations be strictly followed and implemented and that national legislation be compliant with the international rules and regulations on World Expositions. According to the common practice in previous World Expositions, the majority of the host countries had adopted "transformation" which means to adopt indirect approaches to implement the international rules on World Expositions. Consequently, the legislation in the host country not only plays a role of transformation and elaboration, but also complements and improves the existing legislation. Compliance with the international convention, and actively function the host country's own legal competency, therefore, constitute the two aspects of compliance of the host state's legislation with the international rules and regulations.While empowering the host country to a certain degree of flexibility, the BIE, as the international organization that formulates, supervises and guarantees the implementation of the Paris Convention, has established a holistic system to guarantee that the host states'legislation comply with the international rules and regulations, and that the former would not go astray from the latter by taking advantage of the directive yet non-specific features of the latter. Chapter III Safeguard Mechanism for Compliance of the Host States'Legislation with the International Rules and Regulations, introduces and analyzes major mechanisms that BIE adopts during the entire process of bidding, organizing and hosting World Expositions to guarantee that the legislation in host countries comply with international rules and regulations:(1) Inspection of the Bidding Plan. This include the inspection of candidate countries by BIE Executive Committee, and the examination of Registration/Recognition Documents of the host country the by the BIE; (2) Examination of the General Regulations and Special. Regulations, which means BIE review before consent to the General Regulations and Special Regulation formulated by the host or the Organizer that apply to that World Exposition; (3) Counterbalance Mechanism of the Steering Committee. It means from the middle or late part of the preparation and during the operation of a World Exposition, Participants have their interests counterbalanced, through the spokesman which represents their common interests, i.e. the Steering Committee, with those of the host and the Organizer. Participants urge the host and the Organizer to adjust the domestic legislation that does not comply with the international rules and regulations in the view to guarantee full compliance. The sound functioning of the three aspects of the mechanism is due largely to the international organization of the BIE, which plays an indispensible role by exercising its power and operational capability to the full.The Chapter V Practices in the Compliance of the Host States'Legislation with the International Rules and Regulations introduces mains means adopted by the host country to ensure compliance and recent World Expositions practice to achieve compliance. When the existing system of the host country is not in compliance with or even contradictory to the international rules and regulations of the World Expositions, it becomes a key issue for the host country to properly handle the conflicts between domestic laws and international rules and regulations. Generally, the host country of World Expositions will be guided by the Doctrine of Consistent Interpretation and Principle of Prevention, and issue special laws in accordance with the requirements of World Expositions, so as to assure compliance between domestic laws and international rules and regulations, during the preparation and operation periods of World Expositions. Some host countries have enacted special legislation that is based on the General Regulations and Special Regulations of the Expositions it is holding. In 2008, Zaragoza Exposition invented the idea to sign Headquarters' Agreement with the BIE to elaborate and define the detail content of privileges and advantages granted to the Participants by the host country. The contents become the foundation for domestic special legislation.Based on introduction of the practice during Servile Expo 1992, Lisbon Expo 1998, Aichi Expo 2005 and Zaragoza Expo 2008, Chapter IV gives more elaboration on the innovative practice of Shanghai Expo in terms of legal compliance. To achieve compliance of domestic legal system with international rules and regulations of World Expositions, China government invested all-round, multi-level, consistent and series efforts in legal system adjustment and creation that involved customs clearance, inspection and quarantine, taxation preference, personnel entrance and exit, IPR protection, import/distribution/sales of promotion materials, etc. Many of these practices will provide reference to host countries of future World Expositions and to future great events organized by China.ChapterⅤ～Ⅶfocus respectively on the Customs supervision of Goods, preferential tax policy and entrance and exit of personnel, three major fields to analyze the compliance between the host states'legislation and international rules and regulations. In terms of the Customs supervision of cargo and articles of participants, the Customs Annex, formulated when Convention was amended in 1972, clarifies the cargo scope for which participating countries enjoy temporary admission and duty free goods, as well as custom supervision required by the host country. The Customs Annex has laid down solid foundation for compliance trend of the customs supervision system of the host country. In the fields of preferential tax policy and entrance and exit of personnel, international rules and regulations of World Expositions lack specific regulations or requirements while host country still have long way to go before compliance with international regulations. Chapter VI mainly deals with the turnover tax preference of participant's procurement of goods or services inside the host country, and personal income tax exemption for the overseas staffs of the Participants. Chapter VII mainly analyzes the practices related to visa application, work permit, residence permit, temporary vehicle permit and temporary driver's permit.The last part makes a conclusion while purposes six suggestions on the future development of the legal system of World Expositions and on the continuous compliance of legal system of host country and international conventions: (1) International cooperation mechanism of World Expositions should still be respected and enhanced with its goals from regulating to improvement of the quality of World Expositions; (2)Recognition of the reality of each host country, respect for its actual situation and existing legal system should be the trend of international community's cooperation and compliance in holding World Expositions.(3)BIE should continue to strengthen its guidance and regulation over the organization, operation and participation through compulsory regulations and model regulations.(4)BIE should positively expand cooperation with other international organizations to push forward world expo in wider areas.(5)BIE should enhance its capacity building, push forward a more important role of its secretariat in terms of the regulation, combing and management of Expo regulations. (6)BIE should strengthen its piling, analyze and promotion of innovative practice of host country legal system, which will serve as a basis for the amplification and development of the international rules and regulations for World Expositions.Compliance and benign interaction between the legal system of host states and international rules and regulations of World Expositions are the origins of the lasting force of the legal system of World Expositions.