Research On The Application Of WTO Environmental Protection Exception Clauses

With the development of international trade liberalization and the globalization of environmental protection,the relationship between trade and the environment has become increasingly close,and environmental protection issues have become increasingly important in the multilateral trading system.Due to the increase in environmental protection requirements,a large number of environmental-related exceptions have appeared in the WTO legal system,that is,allowing members to implement restrictive measures that are contrary to the basic principles of the multilateral trading system for environmental protection purposes.Articles(b)and(g)of GATT 20 are considered to be closely related to environmental protection,so they are called environmental exceptions.Its appearance has affected the WTO system,so it is necessary to strictly set the applicable conditions.In the application of WTO general exceptions,the DSB has set preconditions for its application by interpreting environmental protection exceptions.However,due to the transnational nature of environmental issues,the ambiguity in the interpretation of environmental exception clauses makes the application of environmental exception clauses difficult.In the WTO disputes,many disputes involved the application of environmental exception clauses.Studying the application of environmental exception clauses is of great significance for balancing the relationship between free trade and environmental protection.This paper mainly solves two problems.The first main problem is to summarize why China's rare earth case is defeated in the application of environmental protection exceptions.What are the problems after losing the lawsuit? The second question is closely related to the first one,that is,through the analysis of typical cases,to summarize the issues that China should pay attention to in the application of environmental protection exceptions in the future.