The Legitimacy Of The Wto System Under Gsp Conditions For Study

Generalized System of Preference (GSP) is one of the most important forms of Special and Differential Treatment to developing countries in the WTO regime. Soon after GSP programs were initiated, preference-granting countries began making the preferences conditional on various factors, requiring the recipient countries to meet one or more tests as conditions of receiving the preferences. Over time, the preference-granting countries imposed increasingly stringent conditions for the receipt of the preferential treatment, requiring the recipient countries to change their non-trade policies in order to get the preference. A study of the legality of conditionality in the GSP programs of the United States and EC in the WTO regime will be presented in the dissertation based on analyzing the EC—Conditional Preference case.The dissertation can be divided into three parts.Part one introduces the origin of GSP, the institutional development of GSP and various forms of conditionality in the GSP programs of the United States and EC.Part two focuses on four issues discussed in the finding of the EC—Conditional Preference case, which are the nature of the Enabling Clause, burden of proof, order of examination and the justifiability of the Drug Arrangements under the Enabling Clause. It then gives a brief comment from three aspects, which are treaty interpretation rules in international public law, the logic order of the reasoning of the EC—Conditional Preference case and implications of the case for developing countries.Part three analyzes the three requirements for GSP programs, which are"generalized","non-discriminatory"and"non-reciprocal"and concludes that it's important to analyze in accordance with"similarly-situated countries"and"available". Then the dissertation move on to the legality of conditionality in the GSP programs of the United States and EC.Above all, the author concludes that as to the GSP programs of the United States, political conditions are most likely to be illegitimate, human rights conditions are likely to be legitimate, while the legality of conditions related to U.S. economic interests would depend on the particular circumstances; as to the GSP programs of EC,"Labor Arrangements"are quite probably legitimate,"Environment Arrangements"might be illegitimate, while the legality of"Sustainable Development and Good Governance Arrangement"would depend on further explanation on the part of DSB when future case arises.