Research On Legal Issues Of Trade Facilitation Agreement

The impact of tariffs, market access and other trade barriers on the international trade has increasingly reduced. However, the potential "trade non-efficiency" played as a kind of "invisible" market access barriers are highly concerned by the international organizations, governments and traders. The complex customs procedures, redundant documentation requirements, and disharmony between the executive departments and other factors has brought many negative effects on the international trade, which forced international society pay more attention to the trade facility. After nearly 18 years of tortuous negotiations, the TFA finally passed. According to the WTO Director-General’s forecast in 2014-2015 global trade annual report, once the TFA takes effect, the global exports would be raised as much as $ 1 trillion per year. Thus, it is of great significance to focus on the study of legal issues on TFA. Based on overview of TFA, researches on the legal issues can be divided into three parts:Firstly, on the subject of trade facilitation, multiple trade in goods regulations related to WTO agreements have been involved. Thus the conflict may occurred when it comes to which one to be applied first. WTO Agreement acts as the role of treaty. The rules of treaty conflicts and coordination are applicable to deal with the conflict between TFA and other trade agreement. Through the analysis of the terms of conflict in TFA, the principle of negative conflict presumption, and lex specialis derogat legi generali, the conflict could be solved.Secondly, covering the special and differential treatment provision in WTO agreement is a common practice, and the existence is necessary and reasonable to some extent. The TFA inherits the tradition, at the same time, it has made many innovative provisions, such as the principle of "content commitments and effective time should match with the implementation capability of the developing and least-developed members", which avoid the previous "one size fits all" practice. But there is still inevitable shortcomings, Mainly in the the capacity-building assistance and support. The weak-points need to be perfect desperately. Thirdly, TFA is mainly on clarifying and improving relevant aspects of Articles Ⅴ, Ⅷ, and Ⅹ of the GATT. At the same time, it establishes many new obligations for the members. Analyzing the requirements of these obligations and the present implementation of our country, pointing out the deficiency existing in our country, which lays a good foundation for our country to make progress and better perform the obligations under the TFA.