Study On WTO Environmental Rules

With the development of the international trade, the economic and trade dealings among nations are on the increase, and the economy of society has been developing fast, which improves the people's living standard. At the same time, it brings a series of environmental problems, and it has been badly affected the living and development of human being. Under this context, human being begins to review the relationship of trade and environment. As the two aspects of the development of our society, the both are all the objectives of international community, which can reinforce each other, but it still exists conflict inevitably. How to coordinate the relationship between trade and environment has become one of the focuses of attention in the international society since the 1990s.WTO is the biggest multilateral trade organization in the world, which aims at maintenance and promoting international free trade from GATT. And it plays an important role in the maintenance of stable and harmonious international trade. In the face of tide wave of environmental protection, WTO put the environmental problems to its system. Then environmental protection and sustainable development has been established as one of WTO's aims, and many clauses on environment protection has been involved into every agreement of it. At Doha conference, the issue of trade and environment is formally set to be the new topic in this new round negotiation, and WTO tries its best to coordinate the balance of trade and environment. But WTO has its special way to deal with environmental problems, the environmental clauses are dispersive in WTO agreements, and it is very rough. These clauses provide legal basis for reconciling the relationship between trade and environment for WTO members, but also bring obstacles in how to comprehend and utilize. From this background, this article mainly researches the environmental clauses in WTO agreements (WTO environmental rules), and macroscopically and systemically analyses the emergence, content, exertion of WTO environmental rules, including its infection to environmental legal system construction in China.This article is composed of four sections. The first section is the introduction of WTO environmental rules. Environmental problems being brought to WTO has its inevitability. This section firstly analyses social background and academic base of the produce of WTO environmental rules, expounds the developing course of environmental problems in WTO, and defines the real connotation of it, discusses the relationship between it and WTO environmental rules. The second section dissertates the content of WTO environmental rules, then analyses its characteristic and deficiency. The third section analyses how the WTO environmental rules is applied in its members, mainly recapitulates its practice in America, Europe Union, Japan and Brazil, then concludes the lessons and experiences to our country. The fourth section combines the promises on environmental problems in the convention of China's entry into WTO and the existing condition of our environmental legal system, and then puts forward some suggestions and countermeasures on how to perfect environmental legal system construction in China under WTO.