The Research On Green Barriers Under The Multilateral Trade System

After the Uruguay Round, there is little room for traditional trade barriers such as tariff to act as importation restrictions. Meanwhile, along with the economic development and improvement of living standards, people begin to pay more attention to health and the quality of the environment they are living in. They are increasingly in favor of environmentally friendly products and boycott those which are harmful to human health and ecological environment. Green barrier, as a kind of non-tariff measures has become an important part in the world economy. So making a deep research on the green barriers not only has theoretical significance, but also has great practical significance. China's current academic research on green barriers is mainly concentrated in the areas of economics, and the legal research is not at a comparatively high level. Therefore, I attempt to achieve a breakthrough on this model, making every effort to put forward some views at the legal level. I do a systematic research on the objective reality of the green barriers and their development, on the basis of relevant agreements in WTO. At the end, I talk about the legal countermeasures. This paper mainly use the research methods of comparison and empirical research, analyze and comment on cases, in order to explore the inner logic of research with regard to green barriers, so as to afford propositions to foreign trade and the improvement of sustainable development for developing countries including China. Except the Preamble and Conclusion, the main body of this dissertation includes four chapters, the abstracts of which are as follow:Chapter one is "a general introduction to green barriers", explained by three sections, dedicated to explaining the basic situation of green barriers, focusing on the analysis of the notion of green barrier. In section one, I analyze the concept and features of green barriers, on the basis of which I analysis the differences between green barriers and green trade measures. In the following section, I introduce the background and resource of green barriers, further study on the reasons why the problem of environment and trade can't reach consensus in the WTO. The last section is mainly about the kinds of green barriers.Chapter two"relative rules about the green barriers under the multilateral trade system"mainly covers the rules related to green barriers under the multilateral trade system. This chapter is divided into two parts. First, I reorganize the relevant rules within the framework of WTO, and analyze the conflict between green barriers and the WTO on the basis of them. Secondly, I reorganize the relevant rules according to the multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), and analyze the conflict between MEAs and WTO on the basis of them.Chapter three"the development trend of the green barriers in the framework of WTO---in the perspective of the WTO dispute settlement"covers two sections. The first one generally introduces the WTO dispute settlement in the field of environment -trade disputes, points out the advantages, disadvantages and the way to improve from the view of developing countries. The other one forecasts the development trend of the environment-trade problem within the WTO framework.The last chapter, the fourth one,"seeking the best balance point between free trade and environmental protection"is also divided into two parts: China's current situation of environmental protection and the Corresponding legal countermeasures. In fact, we should judge every thing in a developing view, including the green barriers. Just as the market economy neither surnamed"capitalism"nor"socialism", it is the common cause of all mankind. In the balance of environment and trade, the key is not which is the lighter and which is the heavier, but to achieve a dynamic balance with the development of society.