Agreement On Trade-Related Investment Measures Evolvement And Prospect

As the result of a compromise among the Contracting Parties, TRIMs Agreement is a transitional and obscure agreement. On the one hand, the content and system in this agreement have not taken shape. In order to avoid some sensitive issues that cannot be reconciled, some provisions are very obscure, abstract, lack of certainty and operationality; On the other hand, the coverage of TRIMs Agreement is very limited .It is only a beginning for investment issues to enter WTO and has not provided additional obligations in liberalization outside WTO discipline. Article 9 in TRIMs Agreement provides Contracting Parties should review the agreements and consider the amendments and enlargement. The provisionality of TRIMs Agreement provides a wide scope for our research on evolvement!The amendments in TRIMs Agreement and the beginning of negotiation of Multilateral Investment Framework in WTO are historical necessity and optimal choice. In order to reflect clearly the track of the Agreement evolvement, the article retrospects the appearance of the Agreement in Uruguay Round, follows the evolvement of Agreement in Doha Round and forecasts the prospect after Cancun Conference. The article tries to reflect the contrasts between different periods in the evolvement and the countries 'different positions in the negotiation through the comparative method, summarize the conflicts of the interests and the differences between me opinions and reveal a devious process to a higher liberalization. In this process, the conflicts between developed countries' opinions of the liberalization of trade and investment and the developing countries' opinions of opposition to the limitation of management right in investment and realization of development objective are the main contradictions controlling the development of the Agreement.There are one Introduction, three Chapters and one Conclusion in the article. The Introduction reveals the characteristic and significance of the article. Chapter 1 retrospects the appearance of the Agreement and expounds the whole process of the TRIMs issues entering GATT, particularly discussing the different opinions in Uruguay Round. The analyse and evaluation of the Agreement and the implementation are also the emphases of this Chapter. Chapter 2 follows the evolvement of Agreement in DohaRound (including Doha Conference and Cancun Conference) .It discusses the disputes in the implementation issues, analyzes the positions of the countries ,particularly the reasonability of the developing countries' opinions, and evaluates and ponders the results of the negotiation. Chapter 3 forecasts the prospect after Cancun Conference. It analyzes and summarizes the influence and revelation of the discussion in Working Group on the Relationship between Trade and Investment and the legislative attempt of the North American Free Trade Agreement and Multilateral Investment Agreement, focusing on feasibility and necessity of the TRIMs Agreement to develop into Multilateral Investment Framework in the future and the design of the Multilateral Investment Framework from the development perspective, and gives three suggestions to China's participation in TRIMs Agreement negotiation. The Conclusion is a summary to the whole article.