Research On The Dispute Settlement Mode Under CEPA

As it contributes enormously to the prompt settlement of disputes, the enhancement of predictability and legal security, the limitation of power abuse and the fulfillment of the free trade agreement's objectives, an impartial and effective dispute settlement mechanism plays an important role in the legal system of the free trade area. Owing to CEPA does not include dispute settlement system, research and discussion on this topic seems worthy and necessary.This article contains three parts.Part one is the general introduction. Through the analysis of its objectives, principles and contents we come to the conclusion that CEPA is in essence an inter-regional free-trade agreement and the legal system it stipulate is just a free trade area. The objectives, which is to progressively reduce or eliminate tariff and non-tariff barriers on substantially all the trade in goods between the two sides, to progressively achieve liberalization of trade in services through reduction or elimination of substantially all discriminatory measures and to promote trade and investment facilitation, give the evidence that CEPA meets the requirements of free-trade agreement. On the other hand, CEPA is more an inter-regional free-trade agreement than an international treaty in that it is signed by the governments that control the different independence customs territories in a sovereign state. At the same time this arrangement has its own binding force in international law. Then is the historic significance of the creation of CEPA. It is not only the symbol of the substantial leap of the economic relations between the mainland and Hong Kong, but also the starting point for regional economic integration among the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taipei. Last is the function of dispute settlement mechanism in the legal system of free-trade agreement. It maintains the normal economic and trade order between the two sides so as to guarantee the smooth progress of the economic cooperation. Part two gives an overall view of several types of dispute settlement body in the free trade areas. EU legal system of the economic disputes settlement consists of judicial methods, political methods and administrative methods. European Court performs an important function in keeping the sequence of the European Communities. While it does not apply properly to the real life situations of China because it is based on advanced integration of politics and economy among its members. The political methods is to hold meetings at regular intervals and consult with each other to settle the disputes. Administrative methods is the most common used one which is executed by the EU Committee. The aforesaid three methods compose the stages of dispute settlement procedure. To adopt which one depends on the characteristics and the development of the disputes. NAFTA sets up a Free Trade Commission and a Secretariat as its administrative management organ. Its dispute settlement body combines political methods with judicial one and integrates procedure with substantiality. The system of APEC is an arbitration , conciliation and consultative one which advocates a voluntary way to eliminate the divergences and oppose the unilateral sanction and threat. The principle of ASEAN is consultation and non-intervention in domestic affairs which under some circumstances seems quite weak and inappropriate.The third part explores the build of disputes settlement mechanism under CEPA. Firstly is the analysis of the causes, nature and settling principles of the disputes. Factors that leads to disputes includes political venture, such as nationalization, social upheaval, misbehavior of the government; commercial venture and other kinds of legal venture. Such kind of disputes in nature belong to domestic affairs. According to the "one country, two systems" principle, the economic relations between the two sides should be defined as the one that is between different independence customs territories in a sovereign state. For historical reasons the two parts developed different legal syste...