Study On The General Dispute Settlement Mechanism Under NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) is both the biggest free trade area (FTA) in the world and the first regional organization established both by developed and developing countries. The various dispute settlement mechanisms have played an important part in the successful operation of this organization. Compared to other dispute settlement mechanisms, these are more creative and have attracted the most attention. Among them, the General Dispute Settlement Procedures under Chapter 20 apply to the settlement of all disputes between the Parties regarding application and implement of NAFTA. As these complete procedures and organizations were shown to have more effectiveness in settling disputes, we can draw lesson from them when establishing the dispute settlement under CAFTA. Therefore, this thesis based its study on the General Dispute Settlement Procedures under NAFTA and attempted to make a broad research with regards to the relative problems surrounding theoretical analysis, comparative analysis and case analysis.Firstly, this thesis introduced the background and the framework of NAFTA followed by its various dispute settlement mechanisms, whilst continuously analyzing their characters. Then, starting from the theory of international dispute settlement, this thesis focused on the General Dispute Settlement Procedures. By introducing this mechanism, the thesis made conclusions as to its characters and defect. For further studying, the author compared this mechanism with the dispute settlement under WTO (WTO/DSM). Not only analysed their differences in organizations and procedures, but also studied the conflict of jurisdiction and obligations between NAFTA and WTO through two cases. Lastly, this thesis introduced the dispute settlement mechanism under CAFTA, and suggested that we can draw lesson from NAFTA so as to establish a fairer and more effective dispute settlement mechanism in this area in the future.