A Study On Electronic Commerce Against The WTO Background

Since the introduction of Internet and communication technology into business activities, electronic commerce has exerted commanding influence on the international trade relations. Accordingly, as the primary multinational regulations of the world trade, WTO rules have also been profoundly affected.The WTO began examining issues related to electronic commerce after the Singapore Ministerial Conference in May 1998. The conference came out with the Ministers' declaration, which decided to study the global electronic commerce issues and is expected to steer the draw up of the e-commerce working plan. Furthermore, the Member request the WTO commissions to examine trade related electronic commerce issues under the guidance of the general council and nurse the hopes that measures will be found by this research to solve the problems which e-commerce had brought to WTO rules.Proceeding from the actual conditions of e-commerce development, the thesis analyzed its impact on the WTO rules and then put forward the suggestion to set up e-commerce framework.The whole thesis consists of three parts:Chapter One is the introduction of the global e-commerce's actuality and the analysis of the e-commerce and international trade relations.Chapter Two is the core section of the thesis, in which E-commerce's impacts on the WTO rules (including GATT, GATS, TRIPS) and its effects on the developing countries are individually analyzed with certain depth.Chapter Three is the suggestion on how to set up the framework for electronic commerce, in which the author discussed the alternative means and gave the proposals about the basic principles and the primary contents of the e-commerce framework.