The Study On Regional Governmental Cooperation Agreement

With the rise of regional economy in metropolitans and megalopolis,the regional economic cooperation,from the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, the Bohai Bay to the Northeast of C hina, Hubei Province, Wuhan Urban C ircle,is in head way. The latest area, the coordinated development of beijing-tianjin- hebei, and the Yangtze river economic belt along the three national strategy will regional cooperation to rise to the height of national strategy. The interaction and cooperation among these adminis trative regions have been deepened and become increasingly frequent, for they have the similar economic and cultural background, and social environment. In order to eliminate the administrative barriers, increase the complementary use of resources and improve the efficiency of public affairs, regional intergovernmental cooperative agreement, a new form of cooperation among regional governments, came into being, which gains a rapid growth in number and the scope.For the regional intergovernmental cooperative agreement is a new concept, it should be clearly defined, with its features analyzed and objects defined. Since there is controversy over its definition, for some from the traditional concept of administrative law, some from the United States, Taiwan, C hina and some from innovative scholars, the concept will be clearly defined in this dissertation and the characteristics of this type of agreement will also be emphasized in the dissertation. It will summarize the characteristics of the regional intergovernmental cooperative agreements, including the specific nature of subjects, equality of status, administrative purposes, a meeting of the minds, and style-required contract o f five aspects.There is a fundamental theoretical issue to be addressed when studying the regional intergovernmental cooperative aggrement, that is contracting authority of the regional intergovernmental agreement. Since it is difficult to find the legality of the contracting authority in local governments, it is necessary to think about the possibility of making a breakthrough in setting the principle of law-preserving in administrative law. Another important issue is that this kind of cooperative agreement is not only effective to the parties involved in the contract, but also binding o n the public concerned in jurisdiction. At the same time, it will influence the the rights and obligations of the third party other than the Parties of the Agreement. This is a challenge to the relativity of contract in both form and content. Because the regional intergovernmental cooperative agreements contains the rights of the local government when handling the local affairs, the study of it involves the study of the relationship of the central and local government and the rights respectively, and the competitive and cooperative relationship among local governments. The theoretical study of contracting right of the regional intergovernmental agreement include the analysis of the legal attributes of it and focusing on answering the questions, such as whether the contracting right is an independent administrative right, whether it is an administrative discretion and whether the act of contracting is an administrative action. On this basis, this dissertation sums up the legalization of contracting authority. That is, what if the regional government cooperation agreement for the rule of law norms, should be public law mode or private law mode, need not to need to separate legislation, the substantive law or procedural law, the uniform legislation or local legis lation.Because there is a lack of legislation on regional intergovernmental cooperative agreement, it is necessary to draw on the relevant laws and regulations of other countries for our reference. The author refer to the US interstate compact and interstate administrative agreement, "local system in Spain," Public Administration and Common Administrative Procedure Act, "Japan’s" Home Rule Act "and the Taiwan region law " and " administrative Procedure Act " and other laws and regulations in respect to the provisions of the regional government cooperation agreements, in particular concerning the setting of the program. In the summary of its features, advantages and disadvantages, the author makes comparative study on systems of regional government cooperation agreements home and abroad.The systematic study of regional intergovernmental cooperative agreement cannot be separated from the systematic construction of the substantive and procedural aspects of the agreements. The research on the substantive aspect include the parties of agreement, cooperative principle,main items, effectiveness and implementation of the agreements. The research on the procedural aspect include the procedures of contracting, approval, filing of the agreements, public participation, so lving the dispute over agreements, and the amendment and termination of the agreement. It is believed that only these two aspects are analyzed comprehensively, will perfect this new form of cooperation among governments.Due to the fact that the practice of regional intergovernmental cooperative agreements develops faster than its theory, and the current legal system cannot regulate it, some agreements are formality, some harm the public interest for the sake of some partial advantage, and there is no proper solution to settle the disputes. It is hoped that the study of regional intergovernmental cooperative agreements can facilitate the exchanges and cooperation among these regions, improve the administrative efficiency, reduce the cost of exchanges among regions, and give full play to the mutually beneficial cooperation, so that the rule of law in administrative activities will be improved.