On The Determination Of Reasonable Period Of Time In Article 21.3(c) Of DSU

In the WTO dispute settlement procedures,after the date of adoption of the panel or Appellate Body report,members concerned shall comply with recommendations or rulings of the DSB within a reasonable period of time.As for the determination of a reasonable period of time,if the parties cannot mutually reach an agreement,then according to Article 21.3(c)of DSU,it shall be determined by arbitration.However,Article 21.3(c)of DSU does not offer specific considerations so as to determining the reasonable period of time,therefore,in legal practice,the parties often have a heated debate on the effective considerations.And the arbitrator in charge determine the reasonable period of time based on the rules established by previous cases,as well as the arguments and evidence proposed by members.The second part mainly researches the benchmark of article 21.3(c)of DSU when determining the reasonable period of time.Due to the fuzzy provisions and the absence of relative explanations,the benchmark is developed in the continuous exploration of arbitrators and the parties.After studying all the cases,it can be found that the understanding of the term "15 months" mentioned in the article develops from the "the principle of 15 months" to "the principle of the shortest period",and it is no longer treated as a shortest period nor a longest period.In order to get recognized by the arbitrator,the parties are supposed to prove their arguments,and it is of great importance to bear the burden of proving the correlation between the arguments and the reasonable period of time.Finally,it is also well established that the way of implementation which consists of legislative method and administrative methods is the premise of determining the reasonable period of time,so the choice of the methods of implementation becomes an essential consideration of determining the reasonable period of time.The third part introduces other considerations,including the legal factors,political factors,economic factors and other special factor.The legal factors are divided into two aspects,one is the choice of legal procedure,namely,the ordinary procedure or special one;the other is the legal content of the flexibility.And the parties and arbitrators hold different opinions toward them.The political factors mainly refer to the political sensitivity,domestic controversy and the special political environment and events.In general,if the parties try to apply for a longer period by this consideration,they would often fail.At the same time,economic factors are only accepted by the arbiters in a particular situation.At last,other specific factor means"particular attention paid to matters affecting the interests of developing country Members" set in article 3.12 and 21.2 of DSU which shall be applied throughout the whole WTO dispute settlement procedures.Although developing country members frequently use this factor,trying to gain recognition of the arbitrators,they are supposed to achieve sufficient proof of the extent of the correlation.The last part goes with the practice of China.As China’ s first case under the article 21.3(c)of DSU,China-countervailing and anti-dumping duties on grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel from the United States worth intensive study.The research of the considerations of determining the reasonable period of time in this case is divided into three steps,first,it talks the burden of proof;then a detailed analysis of the influences that the legislative and administrative methods of execution have on the determination of a reasonable period of time is introduced;then the interests of developing country Members is studied.In the end,this thesis conducts an evaluation towards China’s performance,and brings up some suggestions for future practice.