Thinking From Green Barriers To Green Trade Laws

Accompanied by economic globalization and trade liberalization, the contradiction and conflict between trade and environment become increasingly serious and environmental deterioration is taken seriously by various countries. To avoid environmental pollution and disruption caused by trade, developed countries reinforce the control over international trade activities in succession, and take legal means to prohibit or restrict the import of the foreign products which can not meet domestic requirements for environmental protection, which gives rise to green barriers. Green barriers best illustrate the contradiction between free trade and environmental protection, and reflect the economic gap and disparity in interests between developed countries and developing countries.Green barriers have serious negative impacts on developing countries'export trade,while in the meantime maintain global ecological security and protect mankind's life and health indeed.Non-discriminatory green barriers have their rationality of existence and it is not practical to eliminate all the green barriers in international trade at the present stage. From the standpoint of China, the most reasonable approach to solve green barriers problem is to build the green trade legal system and develop green trade so as to transcend green barriers. Green barriers are the initial expressions of the contradiction between environment and trade, while green trade is the coordination of environment and trade at a higher level.Green trade will inevitably become the tendency of international trade.This paper consists of three chapters.Chapter 1 analyzes the background and origin of green barriers, and discusses their legal nature and manifestations. Based on the re-thinking of green barriers'rationality, Chapter 2 introduces the concept of green trade, and emphasizes the idea conversion from reacting to green barriers to building the green trade legal system.Chapter 3 offers some ideas on building our country's green trade legal system and gives some suggestions on how to perfect the key link of the green trade legal system,namely the governmental green early-warning mechanism.