Study On The Legal Issues Of Export Subsidies In WTO

After the end of World War II, Supporting domestic industries has been the focus of every country's fiscal policy through providing subsidies by government. As it concerns the domestic policy goals of a country and includes many political, cultural and social-welfare problems, subsidy is a very complicated issue in international trade. As a result, it is the prerequisite enforcing subsidy disciplines in international trade that how to tell the differences between lawful subsidies and illegal subsidies. After a long time-consuming period of negotiation, WTO members finally concluded the Agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures,which sets up a series of explicit disciplines for international trade. As we know, whereas, the meaning of legal text is always general and its specific content can only manifest itself in cases. Especially with regards to covered agreements of WTO,which represent the beneficial balance of WTO members, the meaning of the text is more vague. In fact, without the cases ,almost there's no way to discuss the substantial problems in the WTO .The WTO dispute settlement body is consciously categorizing every type of cases through de facto stare decisis and formulating the specific approach regarding this type of cases, thus providing some predictability for international trade.Compared with other kinds of subsidies, export subsidies jeopardize the international trade more because they directly exert burden on other countries. This article generalizes the basic approach by which the panel and the appellate body hear export subsidy cases through studying a few adopted cases and discusses some important aspects about export subsidies. This article have four chapters: chapter one deals with four heated prerequisite issues, including a statement of available evidence, the relationship of panel's jurisdiction and consultation scope, the applicable order of articles and the relationship of Article 16.4 of GATT and SCM Agreement; chapter two analyzes the three elements, including government or any public body, financial contribution and benefit in the definition of subsidy, especially discussing the financial contribution in depth, chapter three deals with the issue of differentiating export subsidies which is divided into three aspects: the recognition of export subsidies in law and in fact, the prohibition of export subsidies defense and theexemption from export subsidies; chapter four discusses the progress in the remedy sphere of export subsidies based on the retrospection of traditional remedy methods in public international law and GATTAVTO.In conclusion, the author gives a brief description on the basic approach by which the panel and the appellate body hear the cases concerning export subsidies.