Study Of Cepa Number Of Legal Issues

To promote the general economic prosperity and development and strengthen the economic and trade cooperation with other states and regions, Mainland and HKSAR has arrived at Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement and its supplementary arrangements after several rounds of talks since 25 January 2002. CEPA is a win-win between Mainland and HKSAR and therefore of immeasurable significance. CEPA was signed at the background of "one country, four memberships" under which both the parties are two individual tariff regions within one China and two individual members of WTO. This characteristic exists only in China, therefore it is of preliminary importance to define its nature. In practice CEPA has been in full swing while it is still far from perfect, for instance, it is still controversial with regard to the definition of some basic categories and the establishment of dispute settlement mechanism, so it has become extremely urgent to regulate these problems to serve the practice. Besides, Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement and its supplementary arrangements have also been concluded and such an agreement between Mainland and Taiwan is expected. The economies in the four regions are so interdependent to each other that the construction of a free trade area based on CEPA has become a practical need. The present paper consists of five chapters:The first chapter is an overview of CEPA. It mainly introduces the general knowledge of CEPA such as the formulation background, main contents, nature and influence. The analysis on the nature of CEPA should be one of the innovations provided by the paper. By analyzing the present three doctrines within this respect, the paper contends that CEPA is a special domestic legal arrangement.The second chapter is a study on the rules of origin concerning goods. Firstly it discusses the position and influence of the rules and believes that they are preferentialin nature. The perfection of the rules is preventive to be abused. Secondly it discusses the specific regulations of the rules and studies two particular criteria in determining the original goods. The CEPA rules can stipulate the newly-emerged high value-added manufacturing industries to some extent, but in the long run, they can not exclude the possibilities of the foreign products taking their advantages and may lose some opportunities to adjust some other domestic industries. Lastly it gives some innovative suggestion to perfect the CEPA rules of origin.The third chapter is a study on the rules of origin concerning service and focuses on the service provider. Apart from the discussion on the related regulation of CEPA, it mainly studies the definition of the service providers including natural person and legal person. It also studies the criteria of the registered place and the business execution localization in determining a legal person. Compared with the related laws and regulations in Mainland % Hong Kong and GATs, the regulations by CEPA is generally too broad to be abused. Considering the specific purpose of CEPA, these regulations should be permitted but some preventive measures ought to be taken. This is also another innovation by the paper.The fourth chapter studies on CEPA dispute settlement mechanism. It firstly discusses the necessities to promulgate the mechanism. Then it gives a comparative study on WTO> ElK NAFTA and ASEAN. Lastly it conceives two ways of negotiation and arbitration on the basis of other regulations.The last chapter studies the free trade area (FTA) in the four regions across the Strait. CEPA is signed between Mainland and Hong Kong, while Macao and Taiwan are also in need of such an agreement, therefore it is suggested to establish a FTA. It firstly discusses the definition and characteristics of a FTA. Then it gives an analysis on the favorable and unfavorable conditions within this respect. Lastly it makes a selection on the module of the area. The paper emphasizes that it takes precedence to define accurately the area and determine the basic principles. With respect to the selection of specific law module, the paper thinks that it mainly consists of signing theFTA agreement % formulating the rules of origin and constructing the dispute settlement mechanism.