Research On The Dispute Settlement Mechanism Of Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement(ECFA) Across The Taiwan Strait

April2005, Hu Jingtao and Lien Chen jointly issued "Common Vision for Peace and Development of Cross-Strait" after their talks, which clearly states the willing to promote economic exchanges and to build economic cooperation mechanism in the cross-strait relationship. In2008, the proposal of "Double sixteen words guiding principles" had led to a historic turning point, after that, Taiwan expressed the hope for signing "Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement", which has also been applauded by Hu Jingtao when he clearly indicated to signing this agreement on the30th publishing anniversary commemoration of "Message to compatriots in Taiwan", which marked the wish of signing this agreement would be coming true.Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) officially signed on June29th,2010, and is playing a huge role of promoting economics and trade cooperation between the two sides. However, the agreement does not contain the thorough stipulations on dispute settlement mechanism, which is the obstacle across the future cooperation and development of both sides. It is believed that building dispute settlement mechanism is a priority.This paper consists of four parts. The first one is an overview of ECFA and dispute settlement mechanism, mainly introducing the background, nature and significance of ECFA. The second part is the analysis towards the stipulations of dispute settlement mechanism in ECFA, which successively explaining the existing legislative overview, the types and the ways to settle the claims between both sides of the Taiwan Straits, and then illustrating some actions to settle the claims after China joining WTO and signing ECFA. The third part is the comparison of several regional trade organizations’dispute settlement mechanism, especially analyzing CEPA, WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA, which brings illumination towards ECFA’s dispute settlement mechanism. The fourth part is the consideration and suggestion of establishing ECFA’s dispute settlement mechanism. This part puts forward some perspectives including the building principles, operational frameworks and specific system design. In the summary part, it indicates the wish to establish ECFA’s dispute settlement mechanism as soon as possible. It also hopes the opinions in this paper can bring some inspirations and assistances in the process of building economics and trade dispute settlement mechanism for Taiwan and mainland.