World Trade Organization

(World Trade Organization)

The Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was held in Marrakech, Morocco on April 15, 1994 The Council of Ministers decided to establish a more global World Trade Organization (WTO) to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947.

The WTO is a permanent international organization independent of the United Nations. The basic principle and purpose of the organization is to achieve the goal of promoting world trade liberalization through the implementation of principles such as market openness, non-discrimination and fair trade. It officially started operations on January 1, 1995 and is responsible for managing the world economic and trade order. It is headquartered in the GATT headquarters building on the shores of Lake Leman in Geneva. On January 1, 1996, it officially replaced the GATT Provisional Institutions.

Compared with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the scope of the WTO's jurisdiction includes, in addition to the traditional and newly determined trade in goods in the Uruguay Round, intellectual property rights, investment measures and intellectual property rights that have long been outside the GATT. Non-goods trade (service trade) and other fields. The WTO has legal person status and has higher authority and effectiveness in mediating member disputes.

The idea of ??establishing the WTO was proposed at the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1947. At that time, it was envisaged to establish an international trade organization while establishing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, so as to Making them the trinity of “money-finance-trade” institutions that influenced the world economy after World War II. The Havana Charter signed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment in 1947 agreed to establish the WTO. Later, due to the opposition of the United States, the WTO failed to be established. In the same year, the United States initiated the formulation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as a temporary contract to promote trade liberalization. After the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations was launched in 1986, the European Union and Canada formally proposed the establishment of the WTO in 1990. The GATT Ministerial Conference was held in Marrakech, Morocco in April 1994. decided to establish the WTO.

As a formal international trade organization, the organization is legally on equal footing with international organizations such as the United Nations. In addition to organizing the implementation of multilateral trade agreements and providing a venue for multilateral trade negotiations and serving as a forum for the original GATT, its scope of responsibilities is also responsible for regularly reviewing the trade policies of its members and uniformly handling trade disputes arising between members, and Responsible for strengthening cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to achieve consistency in global economic decision-making.

The highest decision-making authority of the WTO is the Council of Ministers, which meets at least every two years. It has a General Council and a Secretariat, which are responsible for the daily meetings and work of the WTO. The General Council has three councils: trade in goods, trade in non-goods (trade in services), and intellectual property rights, and two committees: trade and development and budget. The General Council also has a Trade Policy Verification Agency, which oversees various committees and is responsible for drafting national policy assessment reports. A policy evaluation report is drafted every two years for the United States, the European Union, Japan, and Canada, every four years for the 16 most developed countries, and every six years for developing countries. The Court of Appeal arbitrates disagreements between members.

There are two types of WTO membership, namely founding members and new members. Founding members must be parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. When the WTO admits new members, it must be voted by a two-thirds majority of its members at the Ministerial Conference.

On January 1, 1995, the World Trade Organization (hereinafter referred to as the "WTO") was formally established. Since then, it has replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and established the rules of the multilateral trading system. Not only does it legally possess sound international legal personality, but its areas of coordination and management have been broadened and its rules have been tightened. The WTO has a major impact on the development of world economy and trade through its basic principles such as trade policy review mechanism, dispute settlement mechanism, subsidy discipline, sustainable development, liberalization of service trade, intellectual property protection and transparency of trade policies and regulations. In terms of its existing functions and coordination scope, the WTO has become a veritable “Economic UN”.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only international organization that deals with global rules for international trade. Its main function is to ensure the smooth, predictable and free conduct of international trade.

The fundamental goal of the WTO is the reliability of international trade, giving consumers and producers confidence that they can reliably obtain an ever-increasing choice of finished products, accessories, raw materials and services they need. . Convince producers and exporters that foreign markets are open to them.

The ultimate goal of the WTO is a prosperous, secure and responsible economic world. WTO decisions are made based on the unanimous consent of all member countries and require approval by the member states’ parliaments. Trade frictions are guided into the WTO's dispute settlement process. The core of the dispute settlement process is to interpret agreements and commitments and ensure that member states' trade policies are consistent with WTO agreements and member states' commitments, thereby reducing trade conflicts from evolving into political or military conflicts. risk.

By reducing trade barriers, the WTO also lowers other barriers between nations and countries.

The core of the WTO system, known as the multilateral trading system, is the WTO agreement negotiated and signed by most trading countries and approved by their respective parliaments. These agreements are the basic legal rules of international business. They bind the member governments to limit their respective trade policies within the scope of the agreement for the sake of common interests.

The WTO agreement is negotiated and signed by the government. However, their purpose is to help producers, exporters and importers of goods and services operate better.

The ultimate goal is to improve the well-being of people in member countries.

It achieves this goal through the following means:

1) Managing trade rules

2) Serving as a venue for trade negotiations

3) Resolve trade disputes

4) Review national trade policies

5) Help developing countries formulate trade policies through technical assistance and training projects

6) With Cooperation with other international organizations

WTO rules, that is, various agreements, are the result of negotiations among all WTO member states. The currently adopted rules were developed during the Uruguay Round negotiations between 1986 and 1994. The Uruguay Round made major changes to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The main rules on trade in goods in the WTO still follow the rules in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The Uruguay Round also formulated rules on trade in services, intellectual property rights, dispute settlement and trade policy review. The entire set of documents is 30,000 pages long, including 60 agreements and commitments (called "arrangements") made by some member states in certain specific areas, such as reducing tariffs and opening up service markets.

WTO agreements enable member countries to enjoy their rights and fulfill their obligations in a non-discriminatory trading system. In this system, each member country is guaranteed that its exports will receive fair and consistent treatment in other countries' markets; each member country must commit to adopting the same principles to treat all imports. The system also provides that developing countries can enjoy some flexibility in implementing their commitments.

Goods

Between 1947 and 1994, the GATT served as a forum for negotiating the reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade; the GATT established a number of important principles, especially for non- principle of discrimination.

Since 1995, the continuously improved General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has become the main agreement on trade in goods in the WTO. The annexes specifically regulate some specific areas, such as agriculture and textiles, and some specific issues, such as national trade, product standards, subsidies and anti-dumping actions.

Services

Banks, insurance companies, telecommunications companies, travel agencies, hotel chains and transportation companies that wish to do business abroad can now also enjoy services that were previously only available for trade in goods. The principles of freedom and fairness.

These principles appear in the new "General Agreement on Trade in Services". WTO member states have also made various commitments in the agreement to indicate which service areas they wish to open to foreign countries and the extent to which they wish to open them up.

Intellectual Property

The WTO's "Intellectual Property Agreement" consists of trade and investment rules related to ideas and creativity.

These rules clarify how patents, trademarks and geographical names can be used to identify products. It states: Intellectual property rights in trade should be protected.

Dispute Settlement

The procedures for settling trade disputes formulated under the "Understanding on Dispute Settlement Rules and Procedures" are key to prompting member states to comply with the rules and ensure the smooth conduct of trade activities.

When a member country believes that its rights have been harmed, it can resort to the WTO to resolve disputes. Specially appointed independent experts make judgments based on the agreement and the commitments of each country.

This system encourages both parties to the dispute to adopt the principle of friendly consultation to resolve issues as much as possible. If the case cannot be resolved through negotiation, the process of setting up an expert panel to review the case and appeal can be adopted.

The number of disputes resolved is sufficient to give confidence in the system. As of March 1999, the WTO had settled 167 disputes, while the GATT had settled 300 disputes from 1947 to 1994.

Policy Review

The purpose of the trade policy review mechanism is to increase transparency, enhance people's understanding of various countries' trade policies, and evaluate the impact of various countries' trade policies. Many member states view this mechanism as constructive feedback on their policies.

All member states must be reviewed regularly, and review reports include member state reports and WTO Secretariat reports. Since the establishment of the WTO, the trade policies of 45 member countries have been reviewed.

1. Organizational structure of the WTO

1. The Council of Ministers is the highest decision-making body of the WTO

The highest decision-making body of the WTO is the "Council of Ministers" composed of all members' ministers, deputy ministerial officials in charge of foreign trade and economic cooperation, or their plenipotentiaries. The Council of Ministers must at least Held every two years, the Council of Ministers has broad powers, mainly including:

(1) Legislative power;

(2) Quasi-judicial power;

(3) Exempting a member from its obligations under certain circumstances;

(4) Approving the application for WTO observer status submitted by a non-WTO member;

2. General Council

During the recess of the Council of Ministers, the General Council, composed of representatives of all members, acts on behalf of the Council of Ministers. The General Council may meet at any time as the situation requires and formulate its own rules of procedure and agenda. It convenes meetings at any time to perform its duties of resolving trade disputes and reviewing the trade policies of each member. The General Council consists of: Council for Trade in Goods, Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Council for Trade in Services, Committee on Balance of Payments Restrictions, Committee on Market Access, Committee on Agriculture, Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade. , Subsidies and Countervailing Committee, Anti-dumping Measures Committee, Customs Valuation Committee, Rules of Origin Committee, Import Licensing Committee, Trade-Related Investment Measures Committee, Safeguard Measures Committee and Financial Services Committee.

3. Special Committees

When the WTO was established in 1995, there were 75 founding members, of which more than 30 were developed members. Since then, many developing countries and countries with economies in transition have joined. So far, the number of WTO members has reached 144, of which the European Union is an independent member.

4. Secretariat

About 500 people, led by the Director General, headquartered in Geneva, with a budget of US$86 million in 2002.

2. Agreements under the jurisdiction of the WTO

The agreements and agreements under the jurisdiction of the WTO mainly refer to the "Final Document on the Outcome of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations" reached on April 15, 1994. What it contains, but also includes the results of continued negotiations since the establishment of the WTO:

1. Multilateral agreements on trade in goods. Specifically include:

(1) "1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade". This agreement is the basic norm of the WTO regulating the field of trade in goods and the content of other agreements to guide trade in goods. It inherits the entirety of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and also includes understandings reached on relevant specific provisions.

(2) Agreement on Agriculture.

This agreement regulates the trade of agricultural products that has long been outside the GATT, significantly reduces the tariff levels of agricultural trade, and limits agricultural subsidy measures.

(3) Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.

(4) "Textiles and Clothing Agreement." The agreement is an amendment to the original "Multiple Fibers Agreement" and aims to reduce tariffs and quota management and other quantitative restrictions on textile and clothing trade.

(5) "Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade". The agreement regulates the technical standard measures of each member and requires each member's technical standards to be foreseeable and operable, and to be consistent with common international standards as much as possible.

(6) Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures. The agreement requires members to cancel certain investment measures to avoid distortion of trade by investment measures.

(7) The "Agreement Concerning the Implementation of Article VI of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" is the "Anti-Dumping Agreement." This agreement improves the anti-dumping provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

(8) "Agreement Concerning the Implementation of Article 7 of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" is the "Customs Valuation Agreement." The Agreement clarifies the methods that can be used for customs valuation and the order in which they should be applied.

(9) "Pre-shipment Inspection Agreement". This agreement regulates pre-shipment inspection measures.

(10) Agreement on Rules of Origin. The agreement clearly stipulates the determination of origin and the use of origin marks.

(11) "Import Licensing Procedure Agreement." The Agreement regulates the import licensing procedures for the issuance of import licenses for goods.

(12) "Subsidies and Countervailing Agreement." This agreement improves the provisions on subsidies and countervailing in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, provides a clear definition of subsidies, distinguishes between prohibited subsidies, actionable subsidies and non-actionable subsidies, and regulates countervailing investigations and countervailing measures. The application is clearly specified.

(13) "Agreement on Safeguard Measures". This agreement is an explanation of the rules for the implementation of Article 19 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

2. General Agreement on Trade in Services and its Annexes.

(1) "General Agreement on Trade in Services". This agreement is a basic document that regulates trade in services, clarifies the definition and basic principles of trade in services, and lays the foundation for sectoral negotiations on trade in services.

(2) "Basic Telecommunications Services Agreement." The agreement mainly consists of the list of concessions committed by the participants, and is attached as the fourth protocol to the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

(3) "Financial Services Agreement". The agreement mainly consists of the commitment schedules of the participants, who have made clear commitments to market access in the banking and insurance industries.

(4) Other attachments. Mainly formulate negotiation timetable and basic direction for relevant departmental negotiations.

3. "Intellectual Property Agreement". The agreement formulates relevant principles and specific implementation measures to strengthen the international protection of intellectual property rights within the scope of the WTO, including provisions on copyright, trademark rights, patent rights, etc.

4. Understanding of Dispute Settlement Rules and Procedures. This understanding is to improve and strengthen the dispute settlement mechanism of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, making the settlement of trade disputes more fair, effective and faster.

5. "Trade Policy Review Mechanism". This mechanism is to ensure the transparency and predictability of members' trade policies, and to monitor whether each member's trade policies and regulations are consistent with the rights and obligations stipulated in relevant WTO agreements and articles, as well as the status of each member's implementation of relevant WTO agreements.

6. Information Technology Agreement. More than 40 members of the WTO participate in the effort to achieve tariffs on information technology products with more than 290 tax codes (developed countries in 2005 and developing countries in 2005).

7. Plurilateral trade agreements. WTO members can voluntarily choose to participate in the following agreements, and only those who participate will be bound by these agreements:

(1) "Civil Aircraft Agreement";

(2) "Government Procurement Agreement" ;

(3) "International Dairy Agreement".

3. Objectives of the World Trade Organization

1. Improve living standards

2. Ensure full employment

3. Trade in goods and Expand production and promote trade in the service field

4. Sustainable development and environmental protection

IV. Main functions of the World Trade Organization

1. Implementation, management, Various agreements covered by the operation

2. Negotiation forum

3. Dispute settlement

4. National trade policy review

5. Coordinate global trade policies

5. Basic principles embodied in WTO agreements

Non-discriminatory trade is the cornerstone of the WTO and an important guarantee for equal trade among countries. , and is also an important basis for avoiding trade discrimination and trade frictions. Non-discriminatory trade markets should be reflected through the principles of most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment.

(1) Most-favored-nation principle

(1) Most-favored-nation treatment in trade in goods

In terms of trade in goods, the WTO’s 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade " and other agreements stipulate in relevant provisions that members should grant each other most-favored-nation treatment. That is, the benefits, preferences, privileges or exemptions granted by one member to products originating in or shipped to other members shall be immediately and unconditionally granted to the same products originating in or shipped to all other members. Most-favored-nation treatment requires that members of the WTO must not discriminate against each other when conducting trade. All members, large and small, must be equal. As long as the products they import and export are the same, they should enjoy the same treatment, without any conditions attached, and it is permanent. For example, Japan, South Korea, and the European Union are all members of the WTO. When their cars with the same displacement are exported to the United States, the United States must treat the imports of cars from these countries equally and cannot discriminate between them. If the U.S. tariff on imported cars is 5%, then under normal trade conditions, the U.S. can only impose a 5% tariff on cars from these countries. It cannot impose 5% tariffs on Japan, and 10% or more on the EU and South Korea. High tariffs.

The principle of most-favored-nation treatment for trade in goods mainly focuses on the following aspects:

First, import and export tariffs.

Second, any form of fees levied on the import and export itself. Such as import surcharges.

Third, any form of fees related to import and export. Such as customs handling fees, consular invoice fees, quality inspection fees, etc.

Fourth, fees charged for international payments and transfers for import and export. Such as some taxes or fees charged by the government on international payments for import and export.

Fifth, methods of collecting the above taxes and fees. For example, when assessing the value of imported goods when imposing tariffs, the standards, procedures, and methods of assessment should be equal among all members.

Sixth, all regulations and procedures related to import and export. For example, specific information disclosure requirements or instructions are stipulated for import and export within a certain period of time.

Seventh, the collection of domestic taxes or other domestic fees. Such as sales tax, related fees levied by local authorities, etc.

Eighth, any laws, regulations and requirements that affect the domestic sales, purchase, provision, transportation and distribution of products. Such as requirements for quality certificates of imported products, requirements for movement or transportation or storage or retail channels of imported products, restrictions on special packaging and use of products, etc.

Although trade in goods stipulates that a member must proactively grant unconditional, permanent, universal, and multilateral most-favored-nation treatment to other members of the WTO, under certain circumstances, especially those of developing countries and minority members, If special interests require it, under certain conditions, an exception request can be made to the most-favored-nation treatment. With permission from the WTO, the country can temporarily deviate from the principle of most-favored-nation treatment. The main ones are:

First, according to the decision of the General Conference of the Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade on November 28, 1979, preferences are given to developing countries. This kind of preference is mainly reflected in: developed countries give more preferential and differential tariff treatment to the industrial products and semi-finished products exported by developing countries; they give developing countries more preferential and differential treatment in terms of non-tariff measures; among developing countries, Preferential tariffs can be implemented without granting them to developed countries; special preferences are given to least developed countries.

Second, free trade zone.

The treatment enjoyed by a few countries under the customs union and border trade may not be granted to other WTO members; the treatment within the economic integration organization may not be granted to other WTO members who are not members of the organization. For example, the zero-tariff treatment between member states within the EU may not be granted to the United States, Canada, etc.

Third, the "1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" stipulates all measures a member takes on imports and exports to protect the life, health, and safety of animals, plants, and people or for some specific purposes.

Fourth, national security exceptions. That is, when a country's national security is threatened, it may not fulfill its obligations under the WTO's most-favored-nation treatment. For example, the economic sanctions imposed by the United States on the Federation of Yugoslavia prevent the Federation of Yugoslavia from enjoying the most-favored-nation treatment granted by the United States.

Fifth, other measures allowed by the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade mainly include countervailing, anti-dumping and retaliatory measures authorized under the dispute settlement mechanism. For example, in late April 1999, the WTO authorized the United States to suspend most-favored-nation tariffs on a small number of EU products.

Sixth, exceptions to government procurement. Government procurement in goods trade is not governed by the WTO and, therefore, is not currently subject to most-favored-nation treatment.

Seventh, obligations in port-side trade agreements that do not fall within the jurisdiction of the WTO. Mainly refers to government procurement. In areas such as civil aircraft trade, dairy products and beef trade, WTO members do not need to grant most-favored-nation treatment to each other.

(2) Most-favored-nation treatment in services trade

Article 2 of the General Agreement on Trade in Services stipulates that in terms of services and service suppliers, all members of the WTO should immediately and unconditionally The same treatment shall be accorded to the services and service providers of any other member.

In view of the uneven development level of trade in services, the General Agreement on Trade in Services allowed a small number of members to have measures inconsistent with most-favored-nation treatment before 2005, but these measures were included in an exception list. These measures are temporary and will be lifted after 2005. After that, most-favored-nation treatment should in principle be unconditional and permanent among all members.

(3) Most-favored-nation treatment in trade-related intellectual property rights

The WTO’s Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights stipulates most-favored-nation treatment as a general obligation and basic principle that its members must universally abide by. . Article 4 of the Agreement stipulates that in terms of intellectual property protection, any benefits, preferences, privileges or immunities provided by a member to nationals of other members shall be immediately and unconditionally granted to the nationals of all other WTO members. In other words, the WTO requires that nationals of all members should enjoy equal treatment in terms of intellectual property protection and cannot discriminate against nationals of a certain member. However, in the following circumstances, exceptions can be made to the most-favored-nation treatment for intellectual property rights:

First, it is derived from international agreements or agreements on general judicial assistance and law enforcement, and is not specifically for intellectual property rights. Relevant policies and measures formulated, such as some benefits stipulated in bilateral judicial assistance agreements.

Second, treatment provided on the basis of reciprocal treatment in accordance with the 1971 text of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works or the Rome Convention.

Thirdly, the Intellectual Property Agreement does not stipulate the rights of performers, the rights of producers of phonograms and the rights of broadcasting organizations.

Fourth, international agreements on intellectual property protection that have been in effect before the establishment of the WTO have been stipulated in, and these agreements have been notified to the WTO, as long as these agreements do not constitute arbitrary rights for the nationals of other members. or unfair discrimination.

National treatment is a useful supplement to most-favored-nation treatment. On the basis of achieving equal treatment for all WTO members, after the goods or services of a WTO member enter the territory of another member, they should also enjoy the same treatment as the goods or services of that country. This is another manifestation of the WTO's non-discriminatory trade principle - the principle of national treatment. Strictly speaking, it should be the principle of equal treatment for foreign goods or services and the importing country's domestic goods or services.

(2) The national treatment principle and scope of application of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The WTO’s national treatment for trade in goods is reflected in the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the "Relevant Investment Measures Agreement" and other relevant trade in goods agreements.

Among them, the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade followed the principle of national treatment in Article 3 of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and inherited all the rulings and interpretations on national treatment disputes since the implementation of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

(l) The National Treatment Principle of the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

First, the agreement stipulates that when products from the territory of one member are imported into another member, the other member cannot Impose domestic taxes or other charges on imported products in any direct or indirect manner that are higher than the domestic taxes or other charges levied on the same products in the country. For example, WTO members can impose consumption taxes on both domestic and imported products, but they cannot impose higher consumption taxes on imported products than on domestic products.

Second, the treatment accorded to imported products under laws, rules and regulations regarding domestic sales, distribution, purchase, transportation, distribution or use cannot be less favorable than the treatment accorded to identical domestic products. Accordingly, if there are no provisions for domestic products in the above aspects, it cannot be stipulated that imported products must meet certain requirements. For example, if there is no requirement that domestic products must be stored in a specific warehouse or transported by a specific means of transportation, such provisions cannot be made for imported products. Otherwise, it will be regarded as violating the principle of national treatment.

Third, no member may, directly or indirectly, impose domestic quantity limits on the mixing, processing or use of products in specific quantities or proportions, or impose priority on the use of domestic products. For example, in the production of a certain chemical, it cannot be stipulated that a certain proportion of domestic raw materials or domestic ingredients must be used for a certain ingredient. For example, localization requirements and import substitution requirements are regarded as directly or indirectly discriminating against foreign products and violating national treatment regulations.

Fourth, members may not use domestic taxes, other domestic fees or quantitative regulations to provide protection for domestic industries in a sense. This means that even if the same tax or charge applies to an imported product and the same domestic product, but the method of levying the two is different, it may still constitute protection for domestic production. Similar quantitative provisions cannot be applied in a way that provides protection for domestic production. In addition, "domestic production" refers not only to the production of the product, but also to the production of products and substitutes that directly compete with imported products.

It is worth pointing out that the 1994 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade stipulates that domestic quantity restrictions on the mixing, processing or use of products must meet specific quantity or proportion requirements, and the principle of most-favored nation treatment should be followed when implemented.

(2) Some principles formed in the implementation of the national treatment principle

First, national treatment does not take into account the fact that a certain product is subject to tariffs. No member can impose higher domestic taxes on a product on the grounds that it is not subject to tariffs but can itself impose higher tariffs on the product.

Second, national treatment must be implemented in every case of imported products. It is not allowed to choose or weigh between various methods of different impacts and different treatments for different products. Therefore, discrimination against a certain product cannot be carried out on the grounds that it has received more preferential treatment in other aspects, or that other export products of the country where the product is exported have received more preferential treatment.

Third, when a certain product enjoys different treatments in different regions within a country, the most preferential treatment should be given to imported identical products.

(3) Exceptions to national treatment in trade in goods

The national treatment obligation does not apply to government laws, rules and regulations related to government procurement, but "government procurement" here refers to It is the purchase of goods for daily government expenses, not for commercial resale, nor can it be used for the production of goods for commercial resale. The national treatment obligation does not prohibit subsidies paid separately to domestic producers.

The principle of national treatment does not prohibit such restrictions if new or existing quantitative restrictions are imposed on motion pictures and are consistent with Article 4 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing stipulates that developing countries are allowed to subsidize the use of domestic products within 5 years from the date of entry into force of the WTO Agreement. For least developed countries, this period is extended to eight years from the date of entry into force of the agreement.

Local content requirements and restrictions on the use of imported products are seen as violating the WTO's Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures.

However, developed member countries can gradually abolish these measures within 2 years from the date of entry into force of the WTO agreement. This period is 5 years for developing country member states and 7 years for least developed member states.

In short, the WTO stipulates that when a member’s products enter the importing country after paying normal import duties and related fees, the relevant treatment it enjoys should be the same as that of the importing country’s domestic products.

(4) The principle of national treatment in the General Agreement on Trade in Services

The Uruguay Round negotiations expanded the principle of national treatment from trade in goods to trade in services. In the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, the content regarding national treatment is not included in the universal obligations and principles like most-favored-nation treatment, but rather takes the form of specific commitments.

The "General Agreement on Trade in Services" stipulates that, provided that it does not violate the relevant provisions of this Agreement and is consistent with the conditions and requirements in the commitment schedule, a member shall, in all measures affecting the supply of services, Treat services and service providers of other Members no less favorably than it accords domestic services or service providers.

Due to the differences between service trade and commodity trade and their own complexity, the requirements for national treatment are quite different between the two. An important feature of the General Agreement on Trade in Services is that market access and national treatment are not regarded as general obligations, but as specific commitments linked to the opening of various sectors or sub-sectors. This can to reach an early agreement among countries with minor differences. Developing countries cannot be forced to open their service markets that are difficult for them to open, otherwise it will increase their burden in services trade and the balance of payments. This is contrary to the purpose of the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Therefore, China’s national treatment in services trade is reached through negotiations between WTO members on the basis of equality, and national treatment is implemented to varying degrees in different industries according to the agreement. In addition, the implementation of the principle of national treatment in the service sector should be based on the principle of "reciprocity of interests", but this reciprocity of interests should not be "reciprocal preferential treatment" in absolute quantities, but "mutual preferential treatment" to suit different levels of development. the needs of the country.

(5) National treatment in the field of trade-related intellectual property rights

Article 3 of the Intellectual Property Agreement stipulates: Each member shall provide nationals of other members with respect to intellectual property rights. Protection shall provide treatment no less favorable than that accorded to its own nationals. The Intellectual Property Agreement stipulates that the national treatment involved in the agreement must be consistent with the national treatment stipulated in the Paris Convention (1967 text) and the Berne Convention (1971 text). Articles 2 and 3 of the "Paris Convention" stipulate that in terms of the protection of industrial property rights, member states of the "Paris Convention" must give the same treatment to their own citizens to nationals of other member states, and no discrimination against nationals of other member states is allowed. . In addition, this principle also means that member states must not require reciprocal protection. If the patent protection period of one member state is longer than that of another member state, the former has no right to stipulate in its law that the nationals of the latter country only enjoy the protection period stipulated in the latter's national law.

The Paris Convention also stipulates that no member state shall require nationals of other member states to have a permanent residence or business establishment in that country in order to enjoy legitimate industrial property rights;