The Impact of the World Trade Organization on the Chinese Legal System
Yuka Kobayashi
Kobayashi%231%23.pdf (164.79 KB)
The Impact of the World Trade Organization on the Chinese Legal System

It is still early days to appreciate fully the effects of China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession in 2001. As China becomes more accustomed to WTO rules and regulations, it will also adopt a more thorough compliance with the spirit of the WTO agreements. 

While there is still a long way to go, the track record of China’s implementation has beengenerally favourable. This is most evident in the absence of disputes with China before the Dispute Settlement Mechanism, the judicial arm of the WTO. 
 
However, since many of the WTO commitments are broad and vague in anticipation of further definitions, member states’ expectations tend to exceed these commitments, and whilst China has attained a good basic level of compliance, it will face increasing pressure from the international community to go further still.
ALSO OF INTEREST
Policy Brief
China’s Transition and the Limits of the American Constitutional Perspective

The standard frameworks used to evaluate constitutional systems are not well suited to exposing transitional capacity. The constitutional problems that Minxin Pei’s Trapped in Transition focuses on do not reveal the system’s eventual capacity to transcend them.

Download
Policy Brief
Recent Policy Changes in China’s Real Estate Sector

The reform of the urban housing system, begun in the late 1980s, has resulted in a general improvement in accommodation for most of the urban population in China. In less than twenty years, the government managed to provide new and reasonable quality owner-occupied housing to as much as 80 per cent of the urban population. This achievement was made possible by the transition to a market economy and the rapid economic growth that followed.

Download
Policy Brief
The Making of China’s Corporate Bankruptcy Law

For the past 20 years, China has embarked on a multi-track programme of reforms to build a bankruptcy system. The passage of an Enterprise Bankruptcy Law in 2006 (2006 EBL) represents a milestone, but there is still a long way to go.

Download
Policy Brief
Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights

This brief adopts a neo-institutional approach to derive some generalizations about how China’s policies are enforced, why enforcement remains such a problem, and what foreign firms can do to meet the challenges provided by China’s enforcement regime.

In particular, the brief draws on the protection of intellectual property rights to illustrate the following.

Download