The Jurisdiction Overlap And Coordination Between The WTO And Regional Trade Arrangements

With the rapid emergence of regional trade arrangements (RTAS) in recent years, there comes the overlap between the WTO dispute settlement mechanism and that of the RTAS', considering that the WTO agreements made no reference to their coordination . Once a dispute arise, how should a WTO member, also a member of RTAS, make his choice of the settlement mechanism? A similar problem also arise when both WTO's and RTAS'mechanisms received application for settlement to the same dispute. The author of this essay made her efforts to find solutions to these problems, mainly through the methods of empirical and comparative analysis .The main structure of this essay is as follows : At the beginning of Chapter one, also the beginning part of this essay, the author discussed the impacts RTAS may cause to the WTO regime and then made a comparison of the WTO's and RTAs'dispute settlement mechanism .Chapter two talks about the features and causes of the overlap .then it takes a WTO case—Mexico - Measures on Soft Drinks and Other Beverages (WT/DS308) as an example to illustrate the validity of the jurisdiction exclusion clause .Chapter three is trying to find solutions to coordinate the overlap of the jurisdiction. the NAFTA (north American free trade agreements) and the EU agreements were invoked here as examples for the purpose of providing some insights to the solution.Chapter four talked about the overlap and coordination of dispute settlement mechanism jurisdiction China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) and the WTO. then this chapter analyzed the Agreement on dispute settlement mechanism of the framework agreement on comprehensive economic co-operation between China and the Association of Southeast Asian nations and its overlap with WTO dispute settlement mechanism . At the end of this essay, the author made some suggestion to China on this issue.