Rules And Regulations Of The WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism Of Restricted Competition

Regulating or diminishing private Restrictive Business Practice (RBPs) is a part of a nation's competition policy. With the development of economic globalization, RBPs is increasing. This paper focus on the regulation of RBPs under the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement system.The current discussions on a future framework for competition policy within WTO have revealed reservations against the full application of the WTO dispute settlement system to such a framework. The current dispute settlement system of WTO is one of the results of the Uruguay Round negotiations. For an international agreement of nearly universal scope, this system is unique in the obligatory and quasi-automatic character. The possibility of enforcing the legal obligations resulting from the agreements negotiated within the WTO is one of the reasons why the proponents of a WTO competition agreement favor the WTO as a negotiation forum.In order to address the application of the WTO dispute settlement system in the competition area, this paper explores the extent to which the dispute settlement system of the WTO would be suitable in resolving competition related cases.Part Ⅰ recalls that under existing trade rules, national competition law and practice are not exempt from, but rather subject to, the application of the dispute settlement system. Article23.1 of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides three paths to regulate RBPs, including Violation Complaint, Non-Violation Complaint and Situation Complaint. This part analyze each of them.Part Ⅱ is an introduction of the procedures for regulating RBPs under WTO dispute settlement system. Besides referring to the general procedure which deals with Violation-Complaint, this part put more emphasis on the special regulations of Non-Violation Complaint and Situation Complaint in order to disclose how this speciality influence RBPs' regulation.Part Ⅲ is an analysis of the weakness of the dispute settlement system in regulating RBPs. Firstly, government and separate tariff zone are Members of WTO. Thus, private behavior is difficult to fall within the scope of WTO.