Problems And Reforms Of WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism

With a rapid development of Economic Globalization, trade transactions among countries are of a higher and higher frequence, and as a result all kinds of disputes arising from trade transactions emerge quickly and endlessly. Partly for this reason, WTO dispute settlement mechanism plays a more and more important role in settling trade disputes between members of WTO. It is no doubt that WTO dispute settlement mechanism has achieved a remarkable success after it is established. However, there are still many drawbacks and problems existing in this mechanism. It is of obvious necessity to amend it in order to satisfy the needs of WTO members. In order to improve WTO dispute settlement mechanism and realize aims of this mechanism, members of WTO have submitted many suggestions for its reform and meanwhile theroretical research on reform of WTO dispute settlememt mechanism becomes a very hot topic in recent years.Based on an introduction of preliminary knowledge of WTO dispute settlement mechanism, this paper comprehensively analyzes existing drawbacks in this mechanism and introduces and analyzes reform suggestions submitted by members of WTO for this mechanism, and finally submits author's own opinions thereto. Considering the special and important status of developing countries in WTO dispute settlement mechanism, this paper introduces practice and existing problems of developing countries in WTO dispute settlement mechanism in a way of one seperate chapter. This paper also submits some strategies on how China could make a good use of WTO dispute settlement mechanism and how China could participate with more significance in the process of Reform of this mechanism. This paper has seven chapters in all and consists of 225,000 more words in total.The first chapter is Basic Issues of WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism. This chapter focuses on three parts. Firstly, it introduces basic information of GATT dispute settlement mechanism which is the predecessor of WTO dispute settlement mechanism. Secondly, this chapter introduces basic knowledge of WTO dispute settlement mechanism. When introducing the first two parts of the chapter, this paper not only introduces basic functions of these two mechanisms, but also analyzes some deeply issues of WTO dispute settlement mechanism, such as value orientation and characteristics inclination. Besides those, this chapter collects many data to try to explain practice of these two mechanisms and then make a comment on it. Finally, on the basis of introducing basic knowledge of WTO dispute settlement mechanism, this chapter generally introduces reform process of WTO dispute settlement mechanism and also makes a comment thereon.The second chapter of this paper is about Drawbacks of Concrete Procedures of WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism. Firstly, this chapter introduces basic knowledge of the four concrete procedures, namely, consultation procedure, panel procedure, appellate body procedure and implementation procedure. After this basic introduction, this chapter analyzes drawbacks and problems involved in these four concrete procedures.The third chapter is about Institutional Problems in WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism. This chapter focuses on five important institutions, namely, reverse consensus, legal explanation, transparency, amicus curiae and third party principal. Firstly, this chapter introduces basic knowledge of those five institutions separately, then analyzes problems of these institutions exposed in practice, and finally makes a comment on it. After analyzing drawbacks of concrete procedures and institutional problems in WTO dispute settlement mechanism, the fourth and fifth chapters of this paper focus on reforms of these drawbacks and problems. The fourth chapter introduces reform suggestions on legislative provisons of each WTO dispute settlement mechanism procedure and then comments on them. The fifth chapter introduces reform suggestions on institutional problems submitted by WTO members and then make a comment on them.The sixth chapter is about Issues of Protecting Developing Countries and corresponding Reforms. Firstly, this chapter introduces practice of developing countries under WTO dispute settlement mechanism, then explains and analyzes the distance between existing regulations on protecting developing countries and now practical situtation. Finally, this chapter introduces reform suggestions on this problem submitted by members and makes a comment thereon.The seventh chapter is about China and WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism. Firstly, this chapter introduces the practice of China participating in WTO dispute settlement mechanism, and then submits some strategies on how China could make a good use of this mechanism. After that, this chapter introduces reform suggestions on this mechanism submitted by China and comments on them. Finally, this chapter brings about some strategies on how China could participate with more significance in the process of this mechanism.