Study On The European Union Eco-labelling System And Its Impact To China

European Union Eco-Textile system is an environment labeling system established by the European Community, which is comprised of a series of legal documents relating to Eco-labeling. These criteria aim in particular at promoting the reduction of water pollution related to the key processes throughout the textile manufacturing chain, including fibre production, spinning, weaving, knitting, bleaching, dyeing and finishing. The criteria are set at levels that promote the labeling of textile products which have a lower environmental impact. It is a comprehensive ecological complex environment labeling, which features are quite different from other environment label system. Such a system rendered in European Union but not anywhere else, has deeply environmental, economical, technical and legal roots.China is the largest textile producing and exporting country in the world, and European Union is the main importing destination. The change of European Environment policy and law would directly influence China's textile production and exporting. So far, there is none article which specified in this field from legal perspective. This research will not only enrich the European law research, but also provide lessons and inspirations for how China response to other countries'labeling system.This article firstly mainly presents the EU Eco-Textile system's roots, process of establishment and revision, characteristics, application and so on. Then, by comparing with the EU Eco-Textile and WTO environment regulations, demonstrating that althought the EU Eco-Textile coordinated with the purpose of WTO, environmental standards set by European Community is more strict than that of the WTO, which is an over-high environmental standard for the developing countries. Furthermore, although the European Union label seems to be voluntary, it is actually a hidden mandatory, which has disadvantageous influence on those developing countries which environment work has just started. So, combined with the situation of China's textile products and factories, this article raised some practicable recommendations on how to response to EU Eco-Textile: on one hand, we should improve our own ecological textile technical standards and perfect the relating regulations; on the another hand, we should take full advantage of the WTO environment rules and dispute resolution mechanism, actively participate in the formulation and amendment of the international standard, so that we could try to diminish its adverse influence on China's textile exporting.