Research On Special And Differential Treatment Under The WTO Framework

How to encourage developing countries to participate in and integrate into the multilateral trading system to enhance their trade and economic development has always been an important issue of GATT/WTO's concern.Under the WTO framework,although the principle of non-discrimination and reciprocity are the basis for the operation of the multilateral trading system,taking into account of the particularities of developing countries' problems,GATT/WTO still grants developing countries a series of special and differential treatment.However,with the changes in the international economic and trade structure and governance system,the Doha Development Round,which was expected to reduce the development deficits in WTO,has been fruitless in the irreconcilable differences between developed and developing countries.In the end,it once again demonstrated the complexity and importance of the issue of special and differential treatment(SDT).In this context,basic research on special and differential treatment under the WTO framework is indispensable.Since February 2019,the United States has submitted eight proposals with almost the same content to the WTO,requesting the cancellation of the special and differential treatment enjoyed by a large number of developing countries,including China.So the reform of WTO about the SDT is dragged back into the vision of the international community.The fierce debate on this topic not only reflects the inconclusive results of related research,but also reveals the relative lack and onesidedness of existing research.On the occasion of the fierce debate between Chin a and the United States,how to understand these issues,maintain the relevance of the WTO system,promote the continuous and effective operation of the WTO in the future,or for China's future use of the WTO to participate in the multilateral trading system to achieve its national interest,the answers for these questions is more significant than before.In this regard,this paper mainly adopts an economic perspective,comprehensively using theories and methods of law,political economy analysis,and econometric analysis to systematically study the special and differential treatment under the WTO framework.In the research process,first,I focus on the combination of theoretical foundation and the historical evolution of reality,from the perspective of WTO and the interaction of developed and developing countries,systematically analyze the derivation logic,typical features and influencing factors of special and differential treatment;second,I pay attention to the generality and particularity of China's special and differential treatment issues,combine the WTO legal framework,China's WTO accession legal documents and trade practices to clarify China's developing membership and the limited enjoyment of special and differential treatment;third,I focus on theoretical foundations as well as authoritative and accurate empirical data.Through quantitative econometric analysis,this paper further describes the actual implementation status and nature of special and differential treatment,and provides a reference for China to respond to related doubts and promote reforms in WTO-related fields in the future.The main marginal innovations and research conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)this paper comprehensively explains the derivation logic of special and differential treatment from three levels: theoretical basis,interaction between developing and developed members,and differences in policy stance between the two groups.First,the SDT evolved based on the theoretical basis of asynchronous liberalization,in the form of the two-way interaction process between developed and developing members in the practice of multilateral liberalization,and influenced by different understanding of asynchronous liberalization between developed and developing countries.Second,the evolution of special and differential treatment under the WTO framework is a process of continuous accumulation and expansion,lacking necessary sublation.Third,the plurilateral approach in which the negotiator is smaller than the applicable party is an important form of SDT,which has effectively promoted the progress of multilateral negotiations in the history of the multilateral trading system.(2)By comprehensively sorting out the special and differential treatment provisions of the WTO and the WTO legal documents of various developing members,it has revealed the heterogeneity of the special and differential treatment enjoyed by developing members.By collecting and sorting out the legal documents of developing countries joining GATT/WTO since the establishment of GATT,this paper systematically analyze the heterogeneity of special and differential treatment and its influencing factors under the WTO framework in multilateral practice from the perspective of WTO and individual developing members.It is found that the WTO does not have a single set of special and differential treatment applicable to all developing countries.The status of developing membership and special and differential treatment are relatively independent(3)this paper shows the limited export promotion effect of the Generalized Preference System(GSP),and clarified that the GSP's tailored characteristics of developed countries according to their own interests are the underlying reasons.From the perspective of GSP under the framework of special and differential treatment,using data from 1997 to 2019 and the fixed-effect panel model,this paper analyzes the export impact of US GSP on beneficiary countries.The results confirmed that although GSP has a promoting effect on the exports of developing countries to the US,there are heterogeneous effects among different developing countries,and the economic significance of GSP to developed countries and developing countries is asymmetry.Through in-depth exploration of the deep-seated reasons behind the limited export promotion effect of special and differential treatment,it is revealed that the nature of non-reciprocal preferences is still reciprocity.(4)This paper expands the theory of the protection for sale model,and provides empirical evidence of the conflict between special and differential treatment and the multilateral liberalization represented by the WTO.By introducing GSP into the protection for sale model,two channels for GSP to influence multilateral liberalization in developed countries have been constructed,namely,rent destruction effect and public goods supply effect,and a series of empirical estimations have been carried out.The results show that GSP has a negative impact on multilateral liberalization in developed countries.The United States' multilateral tariff cuts have had an inhibitory effect and have played a stumbling block to its multilateral liberalization.Among them,the effect of the supply of public goods is the main channel of influence,which again demonstrates that GSP is only a tool for the United States to realize its own economic and trade interests,rather than helping developing countries achieve their development goals.(5)This paper proposes a feasible path for the WTO's future SDT method,which is based on the conditional plurilateral agreement,so as to avoid the further controversy over SDT under the original multilateral framework.This method must draw on the rule-based agreement-by-agreement approach advocated by the European Union and Canada and the flexibility approach in trade facilitation agreements,allowing each WTO developing country member to set the implementation period required for each provision in the agreement and have the right to define whether technical assistance and capacity building are needed.This method will focus on the future WTO discipline and corresponding SDT rules rather than the existing SDT framework.In current and future negotiations,WTO members should not negotiate fixed standards for SDT,but should specifically consider the new issues under discussion and design the SDT framework that is most suitable for the current situation.