A Research On Some Legal Issues Of Non-Agriculture Market Access Negotiations

The WTO’s Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali announced the end of the Doha Roundof years of procrastination. At the same time of in celebration of " Bali Package" as abreakthrough, we also see that a lot of major issues did not achieve the expected goals, theissue of non-agricultural market access(NAMA) is one of them, only reach an frameworkagreement on the2008mini-ministerial conference. So far, the academic research on thistopic is a lack of comprehensive analysis, such as some scholar concentrated in relativelyshort time of the negotiation, only on one specific aspect of it or just discuss it from a certainangle without an overall study on the each stage of the negotiation, the dilemma of it and thefinal results; and when exploring the reasons of predicament, there is a lack of comprehensiveconsideration from both macroeconomic and microeconomic angles. However, the researchabout NAMA is of great significance both in theory and in practice. First, NAMA andagricultural in goods trade is the two most important and basic issues that each WTO memberput the most concern on. Second, the outcome of the negotiations has a great deal with theparticipating members’domestic industry, economic development and policy space. Finally,the plight of its protracted negotiations is contrary to the original intention of WTOnegotiation, and to achieve the final agreement is the goal of all Members. Research on thistopic is not only do some suggestion for the practice of each Member, but a necessary step topromote progress in the negotiations.This article is divided into the following five parts:The abstract introduces NAMA and importance of it, analyses the research status ofnegotiations on NAMA, and points out those are lack of systemic analyze.The first part is a brief overview. On the one hand, it describes the emergence anddevelopment and the review of the subject, on the other hand introduces several major issuesunder this topic-tariff reduction, sectoral liberalization and non-tariff barriers to trade, andtheir concept, classification, and the participation of each member.The second part focuses on the participation of members(including the countries andgroups) and analyses where they stand, what their proposals and WTO’s relevant regulations,from the three main topics, based on the members’motion, conference recording, agreementsand other literatures. The third part is to analyze the legal issues of the dilemma encountered in negotiations.First discusses the difficulties of negotiations, and points out the divergence of interests isalways the root of dilemma, and the way, the uncertain scope, have intensified the division.Then finds out that the causes of these difficulties is in addition to vastly different levels ofdevelopment among members, as well as the institutional weakness, the conflict between“hard” implementation of rules and “soft” rule-making. Besides, the uncertain duty ofCommittee and the Chairman also left a lot of room to maneuver, coupled with the influenceof regional trade agreements, pushing the negotiations entered a deadlock. Finally, make theoutlook for the whole negotiation, and make relevant proposals for reform.The fourth part is to discuss some legal issues of China’s participation involved in thenegotiations. Based on the China’s commitments and the existing WTO rules, this partanalyses China’s positioning and strategy in NAMA negotiation. As China gradually growinginfluence in the world, then will discuss the mutual influence between China andnon-agricultural market access rules, and then makes some suggestions for China raised in thenegotiations.