Wto And The Environmental Terms Of Trade Related To Legal Issues Studied

With the influence of sustainable development, the international trade liberalization gradually restrained by environmental protection. Under this background,WTO pay great importance to the trade- related environment problems. At the preface, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization definitely provided: "allowing for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of economic development". Moreover many agreements of WTO have trade provisions relating to environmental protection,such as GATT1994,Agreement on Agriculture, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, General Agreement on Trade in Services, Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, Agreement on Trade - Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights,Agreement on Government Procurement.As a international economic organization aiming to promote tarde liberalization, WTO's objective of trade - related aspects of environmental protection policy is to prevent the negative effective of trade liberalization to environment and to realize the sustainable development of e-conomy and trade. But because of WTO members' difference in the levelof economic development, the level of science and technology and the consciousness of environment protection, as well as the contradiction on value - orientation of current international trade policy and environmental protection policy, the conflict between trade liberalization and enviro-mental protection can't be avoided,and this makes it is difficult for the trade provisions of WTO relating to environmental protection to accurately find a balance between trade liberalization and environmental protection in practice. Recently, in the arbitral awards according to these provisions,a trend from preference for trade liberalization to preference for environmental protection has occured. Furthermore, the defects of these provisions offer a chance for the trade - protectionist to establish "green trade barrier". In addition, the relationship between the trade provisions of WTO relating to environmental protection and the trade provisions of Multilateral Environmental Agreements is worthy to be noticed, for this problem may influence the application of those provisions of WTO- This article comprehensively construes the trade provisions of WTO relating to environmental protection in the legal aspects and inquires into our countermeasures.This article is composed of five sections. The first section is introduction. It expounds the occuring background of the WTO's trade provisions relating to environmental protection,the situation of its application and the necessity of researching it after china's entry to WTO.The second section analyses the meaning of the trade provisions of WTO relating to environmental protection, and summarizes the main defects of these provisions.The third section expounds the relationship between the trade pro-visions of WTO relating to environmental protection and some basic principles of WTO. Generally speaking,these provisions and their application make some impact on the basic principles,and this also reflect it is difficult to coordinate the conflict between environmetal protection and trade liberalization.The fourth section construes the conflict and coordination between the trade provisions of WTO relating to enviromental potection and the Multilateral Environmental Agreements.The last section inquires into the challenge to China and our legal countermeasures.