A Study On Negative List Rules

By analyzing the nature, format and effectiveness of Negative List, this thesis set a new way of cataloging negative list. It can be divided into species list and particular item list according to the items set in the list; and also can be classified into guidance list, list enforced by international law and list enforced by domestic law. The objects of study here, Shanghai Free Trade Zone and Dubai International Financial Center, both are the list set by domestic law. The reason why Negative List is applied to international bilateral or multilateral agreements, internal legislation and administrative management is based on an ancient legal principle:all is permissible unless prohibited, which also turn the silent a state made on the items falling outside of the list to be a promise. A foreign investor can do anything except for what have been included in the Negative List, if it is guaranteed by such promise.Another word related to Negative List is "state intervention". The author analyses the methods used by states to intervene the international investments, finding that, besides the obvious way of intervention, the supervision before, during or after the admittance of foreign investment is a more invisible methods to ensure the state’s power over international investment.After reading and comparing a large number of materials, the author finally chooses the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) as the object of comparative study. DIFC is a very successful FTZ, which leads a magnificent reformation in the UAE. For absorbing the free trade system and attracting the fortune overseas, DIFC has abolished the civil laws and commercial laws of UAE within the FTZ area and set a new legal system, which is more close to common law and very flexible in judicial procedure.The third Chapter focuses on two ways of achieve the harmony between investment freedom and state intervention, which are also the methods to reach the balance between the interests of the foreign investor and of the host country. First of all, the host country has to wave parts of its control power to fit into the international or regional cooperation, which means, to use its intervention during the investment supervision as less as possible. Secondly, the host country can replace the pre-supervision to post-supervision., at the same time, imposing the special examinations, such as security examination and anti-trust investigation.The author ended this thesis with pointing out the merits and demerits of the Negative List in Shanghai FTZ, meanwhile, giving her advices for the coming reformation. The author suggested that:(1) to rise the legal level of "Negative List" and empower it with more functional use; (2) to remove or elaborate more detail on "the restriction type", turning the investment environment more transparent; (3) to build a more effective special examination system and to weaken the state power on that on a reasonable level; (4) to design a dispute mechanism.