The Possibility and Limits of Addressing the Multiplicity Phenomenon of Private Regulations under the TBT Agreement
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Hung, Shiang-Wei
Abstract
Against the background of the prosperous development of international trade, various types of private regulations have been put into the market, in order to maintain the steady development of global value chains of products, ensure suppliers manufacture the products in full compliance witht the request of buyers, and reflect the changing tastes and preference of end-consumers in the market. Those private regulations, if effectively implemented, can produce many positive influence to the international trade, which may include resolving a number of externality problems that originally cannot be resolved by simply relying on the price mechanism in the market. For that reason, the rapid development of private regulations is able to bring about positive influence to the international trade, and should thus receive the credit. However, for those who are unable to comply with those product regulation (that are adopted by institions other than the government), they still constitute trade barriers to some extent. Especially, when there exist multiple similar private regulations in the market to address the same or similar objectives, suppliers might have to comply with all of them in order successfully sell their products to the particular market. Such compliance may entail production procedure requirements, contents, certification and auditing procedures which are partially similar and partially different. As a result, the trade-restrctiveness derived from the multiplicity of overlapping private regulations might not be less than those derived from a mandatory measure adopted by a government. Considering that under the WTO trade law system, TBT Agreement include some provisions applicable to those private regulations, the thesis aims to discuss the possibility and limits of addressing the multiplicity phenomenon of private regulations under the TBT Agreement, which include the following issues: the coverage scope and substantial obligation of TBT Agreement to private regulations, the meaning and scope of “non-governmental body” under the TBT Agreement, the circumstances in which the multiplicity of private regulations phenonmen might be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement, the meaning of the “take such reasonable measures as may be available” clause, and the possible action which is reasonable and available for a government to take, in order to address the multiplicity of private regulations phenomenon. Lastly, the thesis will examine the issue of multiplicity phenonmenon of private regulations from the perspective of WTO multilateral trade policy, and provide some of the multilateral policy tools to deal with the limits facing by the TBT Agreement when addressing the trade issue of this kind.
Subjects
Private Regulations
TBT Agreement
the multiplicity of private regulations
trade barriers
non-governmental body
take such reasonable measures as may be available
Type
thesis
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