Study On Legal Issues Of Green Trade Barriers And The Counter Measures Of China

Green trade barriers (GTB), which have many different forms, with some exceptional provisions of WTO as its legal basis, is a new type of market accession system. According to the motive of the country that implements it, it can be divided into normal green trade barriers and abnormal green trade barriers. It is permitted by the WTO regulations to reasonably use green trade barriers to protect ecology, but unreasonably use of it is objected. China should reasonably use green trade barriers to protect the ecology in international trading, thus to boycott and counterattack the abnormal green trade barriers from some developed countries. After China's entry into WTO, China's foreign trade is facing both unprecedented opportunities and challenges. With the global promotion of environmental protection, much importance has been attached on the relationship between international trade and environmental protection. And that gives rise the problems of Green Trade Barriers which, in the name of solving external environmental problem, is international trade protectionism in essence. Most of the environmental trade measures are formulated based on the level of the development of the economy and the technology of developed countries and that will definitely affect much on the foreign trade of developing counties. it is of practical significance to study GTB and the countermeasures China takes in its foreign trade . To realize the "win-win" goal of both free trade and environmental protection, it is necessary to realize the essence of the GTB to evade its harms and achieve its benefit and this is also the writing purpose of the present paper. The paper first makes an analysis of the definition, the legal properties, and forms of GTB and then expounds its international legal basis. The paper points out that the influence caused by GBT mainly focus on the aspects of product competitiveness, and foreign trade.After the analysis of some major problems in China's countermeasures to GTB, the paper makes an exploration in the breakthrough in China's legal countermeasures to GTB. It is proposed that the domestic related legislation in trade and environment should be improved. The legal system of environmental protection of Chinese characteristics should be bulit. The administrative and judicial systems should be reformed and perfected. The level and quality of law enforcement should be improved. Proper green trade limiting measures should be taken to protect China's ecological environment and trade . Actively paticipating in the international legislation on the related issues should be encouraged and flexibel dispute-settling systems should be used to settle the international disputes caused by GTB .