Rights And Powers On The Safeguard Legislations Of WTO

Measure of Safeguards is a kind of important trade remedies of the WTO. It is highly imperative to do research on the rights and powers of the WTO Safeguards legislations in the present situation that the WTO Members'practice of Safeguards is fast developing whereas the WTO Safeguards legislations need to improve. The aim of this research is to deepen and detail the understanding of the legislation system of WTO Safeguards Measures, to give clearer and more operational guide to the WTO Members'practice of Safeguards and to explore the driving force and the future vision of the WTO Safeguards legislations.This dissertation consists of three parts:introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction is intended to explain the significance of the thesis from theoretical and practical points of view. The introduction also summarizes and comments on present studies, both at home and abroad, about rights and powers on the WTO Safeguards legislations. It finishes by pointing out the main approaches which the dissertation is going to employ.There are four chapters in the body; the contents are as follows:Chapter One explains the theory of the relationship between rights and powers, the fundamental issues about the WTO Safeguards legislations and how the aforementioned theory applies on such legislations. Firstly, from the view of domestic law, it explains the jurisprudence theory of the right and power and the relationship between the two. The chapter then elaborates upon the fundamental theoretical topics of the concept, principles, sources, history and values of the WTO Safeguards legislations. It also states the possibility and the exceptional range to use the theory of rights and powers to analyze the WTO Safeguards legislations.Chapter Two focuses on the study of the powers in the law-making and the interpretation of the WTO Safeguards legislations. Taking the examples of the power to make laws and the power of legal interpretation, this chapter mainly discusses the objects, subjects, approaches and results of the two kinds of powers and comes to the realization that they stand for the value of trade protection and sovereign interests, respectively.Chapter Three focuses on the rights in the implementation of Safeguards. Among the rights in the WTO Safeguards legislations, this chapter settles on the right to implement Safeguards, the right to suspend concessions and the right for WTO Members to express themselves and discusses accordingly the subjects and the rule systems of the former two and the approaches to exercise the third one. This chapter is concluded by the realization that the rights to implement Safeguards and to suspend concessions represent the value of trade protection while the WTO Members' expressive right represents the value of sovereign interests.Chapter Four expounds the check-and-balance mechanism among rights and powers on the WTO Safeguards legislations. Initially, the chapter demonstrates the check mechanism between the two kinds of rights using the initiative nature of right to implement Safeguards and the nature to be after the onset of the right to suspend concessions, whereas the balance mechanism between two rights is explained through their link------the rule of competency of Safeguard Measures. The influence among rights is elaborated taking the example of how the WTO Members'expressive right can have an effect on the former two rights. Then, through the influence of the power to make laws and the power of legal interpretation on the right to implement Safeguards, it is made clear that when the powers affect the rights, the rules of the WTO Safeguards legislations tend to be more rigorous. Through the influence of the WTO Members'expressive right on the powers of law-making and of legal interpretation, we see when the rights affect the powers, the rules will become more convenient for the Members to use. It is also summarized how powers and rights affect the difficulty of applying Safeguard Measures. Thirdly, from the view of the power rank relationship between the two kinds of powers, the operating results of the powers and the organizations related to the powers, the chapter demonstrates the check-and-balance mechanism between the legislative power of WTO negotiators and the interpretative power of the Dispute Settlement Body. After that, it tries to forecast the future of the WTO Safeguards legislations.The conclusion part of the dissertation summarizes the research results and reflects its enlightenment to developing countries. Knowing the rights and powers on the WTO Safeguards legislations and its trend of development, this part gives some suggestions to developing countries about how to seize opportunities in the WTO Safeguards practice.