Studies On Legal Issues Of Export Control Under WTO System

In the past, World Trade Organization (hereafter referred to as "WTO") developeda system for solving import control measures, typically as safeguards, anti-dumpingand countervailing measures, but as for the export control system, it is not as completeas the import restrictions. During recent years, with the development of trade, exportcontrol measures are becoming more and more compelling. For example, the UnitedStates, the European Union and Mexico sued against Chinese restrictions on rawmaterials export measures to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. The claimantmaintained that China’s export restrictions violate Article11of the General Provisionson Tariffs and Trade (hereafter referred to as "GATT") which apparently abolishesquantitative restrictions made and also are in violation of China’s accessioncommitment. It attracted public attention once again towards the natural resourceexport control measures and cause experts to research and analyze export restrictions.In the first part of this article, it will clarify the main concept involving exportcontrol measures on natural resource, to provide readers with a clear definition of thescope of the various concepts, and thus lay the foundation for the theory discussedlater in the article.In the second part, it will analyze the content of law in WTO regarding to theexport restrictions, especially focused on export quotas and export tariffs. Firstly, itwill analyze the main applicable law of export quota, including but not limited to, GATT Article XI, which requires members to abolish all quantitative restrictions onexport in principle, and GATT Article XX and XXI, which allow members undercertain circumstance and conditions to take exceptional measures of export control ofresources (that is to say, members are entitled to apply export restrictions); Secondly,it will analyze main applicable law on export tariffs, including but not limited to, thenational treatment applicable in export tariffs, export tariffs and accession in GATT.In the third section, it will analyze the WTO dispute settlement mechanism in thetypical cases concerning export restrictions, including the "Japanese semiconductorcase","Argentine cowhide leather exports and imports into the case","Canadiansalmon case", and "United States, Europe, Mexico versus Chinese export restrictionson raw materials case", in summary to the facts and the law applicable to the issuesencountered in typical cases, and discuss the approach of Experts Panel (andAppellate Body) for dealing with export restrictions, including the motivation behindand the future trend. And it will focus on the applicable practice of "Canadian salmoncase" and "the United States, Europe, Mexico versus China raw material exportrestrictions case".In the fourth section, it will analyze the rationality and legitimacy of the legalsystem of OPEC on export control measures, of which OPEC limits production andprice of members. Despite that OPEC restricts export on members in control measuresthrough regulating markets of members in quantity and price of international oil trade,but it still runs legally longtime under the WTO framework. It will analyze theseexport restrictions from a rational point and reference significance.