Harmonizing Preferential Rules Of Origin In The Framework Of WTO

The core issue of RTA ( Regional Trading Arrangement ) is the preferential trading arrangement. The rules of origin are of great importance in determining whether the preferential trading arrangement will be carried out. However, the WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin is applied only to non-preferential rules of origin. It is not applicable to the process of determination of the country of origin for preferential trade. Only a"Common Declaration with Regard to Rules of Origin"has been added to the main document. Besides, the absence of GATT guidelines on ROOs for RTAs have left RTA participants free to adopt whatever rules they may deem appropriate. In this way, the preferential rules of origin could play the role of new trade barrier in international trade. So the multilateral trade system should make disciplines to limit the unbound use of preferential rules of origin as trade barrier.This paper is divided into five chapters:Chapter One"the Preliminary issues of preferential rules of origin"deals with some primary issues, including the background of the preferential rules of origin and some basic theory concerned about the preferential rules of origin.Chapter Two and Chapter Three analyze the specific preferential rules of origin in trading arrangements of goods and service separately. The purpose is to identify the effects of the preferential rules of origin through analysis of specific preferential rules of origin in different RTAs.Chapter Four"the problems in preferential rules of origin and their trade effects", mainly focuses on the complexity of the preferential rules of origin and their disruption to the normal flow of international trade and investment. Besides, the mess of different preferential rules of origin in different RTAs——"spaghetti bowls", increases transaction costs, becoming the new trade barrier.Chapter Five"harmonizing the preferential rules of origin in the framework of WTO"focuses on rules in WTO, which are related to RTA or rules of origin, such as Art. XXIV GATT and WTO Agreement on Rules of Origin. The purpose of this paper is to improve the rules in WTO, in order to harmonize the preferential rules of origin in the framework of WTO.