The ECFA Dispute Settlement Mechanism To Build Research---CEPA,CAFTA,WTO,NAFTA Dispute Settlement Arrangements Comparison

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement on June29,2010in Chongqing, which comes in force on September12,2010. The signing of the agreement provides an institutional guarantee for the cross-strait economic exchange. In accordance with the provisions of Article10of ECFA, the two sides in the area of investment, dispute settlement areas of consultation and consensus as soon as possible. In view of the sensitive and political complexity of cross-strait economic relations, the regional Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement mechanism in practice is difficult to fully apply to two sides dispute settlement, the existing cross-strait dispute settlement arrangements can not fully meet the increasingly frequent trade and business needs. Therefore, only by analyzing the content and features of existing regional trade dispute settlement mechanism, combined with the actual development of the cross-strait economic and trade exchanges, can be found is in line with the development of cross-strait practical and reasonable and effective dispute settlement mechanism, to truly boost ECFA ease of implementation conditions. After analyzing the existing cross-strait trade dispute settlement arrangements situation and inadequate, pointing out the reality and necessity to construct dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA. By comparative study of CEPA, WTO, CAFTA, NAFTA and other trade dispute settlement mechanisms, which reflecting fuzzy requirements of CEPA Dispute Settlement arrangements, setting up a special dispute settlement body under WTO dispute settlement arrangements, combining political and legal dispute settlement patterns under CAFTA dispute settlement arrangements, decentralized dispute settlement mode under NAFTA dispute settlement arrangements, proposing specific institutional arrangements and general idea to construct the dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA. This paper is divided into four parts to study the issue of how to construct the dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA which meets the actual needs of both sides:The first part describes the contents and inadequacies of existing dispute settlement arrangements,the increasingly frequent economic and trade exchanges, ECFA itself as expressly provided the establishment of dispute settlement, comes to the necessity to construct dispute settlement mechanisms under ECFA.Through the second part comparative studying of the existing global and regional dispute settlement mechanism and by analyzing regional economic arrangements of CEPA and CAFTA and the dispute settlement mechanism under WTO and NAFTA, to draw the economic cooperation organization dispute settlement mechanism features and analyze its impact on building dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA.The third part mainly discusses the specific arrangements to construct dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA. Based on the study of above parts, combing with the actual situation of economic and trade exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, proposed the basic principles and dispute settlement patterns and specific dispute settlement process should adhere to on the process of constructing dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA and to lay a solid foundation to reasonably construct dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA.The fourth part discusses the impact of dispute settlement arrangements of the newly signed Cross-strait Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement for dispute settlement mechanism under ECFA,including the impact for constructing principles and building model and specific program design of dispute settlement mechanisms under ECFA.