文档介绍：International Trade Law
By Chenke
Foreign Language Department of Changsha University
WTO Laws and Rules
The founding of GATT
1) Trade Barriers
All nations have trade barriers to regulate imports. Nations impose import trade barriers for many economic and political reasons, such as regulation of petition, retaliation against foreign government trade barriers, implementation of foreign policy, implementation of national economic policies, protection of public health, safety and morals, and plant and animal life, etc.
Tariffs
The mon device for regulating imports is the tariff or import duty. A tariff is a tax levied on goods by the country of importation. It is puted either as a percentage of value or on the basis of physical units. Tariffs are generally considered to be one of the least restrictive types of trade barriers. Comparatively, nontariff barriers are much more restrictive to free trade.
Nontariff Barriers to Trade
Nontariff barriers to trade are any impediment to trade other than tariffs. They include quotas, embargoes, import licensing schemes, etc.
2)Trade liberalization through Cooperation
Most nations e to realize that trade barriers are damages to the international economy and ultimately to their own. Moreover, they have realized that if they restrict the products of their trading partners in order to protect one segment or sector of their economy, then another sector will suffer. Therefore, the nations began to make efforts to establish new “rules of the game” for conducting their trade relations resulted in the creation of an international legal system to handle trade matters, complete with international law, dispute settlement mechanisms, and agreed-upon codes for regulating trade. This system is based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
2. Major Principles of GATT 1994
1) Multilateral Trade Negotiations
Under the rules of GATT, nations will meet periodically to reduce tariffs and nontariff barriers to trade. Since 1947 the aniz