Taking Justice into Your Own Hand: The TBI Mechanism in China

• Main Author: GAO, Henry
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2010
• Subjects: China; WTO; trade; Trade Barrier Investigation; Section 301; public-private partnership; Asian Studies; International Trade Law; Transnational Law
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/957; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sol_research/article/2909/viewcontent/GaoTRAD2010023.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

To protect the trade interests of their firms in foreign markets, several countries have established various institutional arrangements. For example, the United States has the section 301 procedure, while the EU has the Trade Barrier Regulation (TBR). Learning from their experiences, China also established its own Foreign Trade Barrier Investigation (TBI) mechanism in 2002. This article starts with a discussion on the background for its establishment as well as the substantive and procedural requirements for investigations under TBI. In the next part, the article discusses how TBI has worked in practice by reviewing the Japan – Quantitative Restrictions on Laver case (hereinafter ‘Japan–Laver case’), the only case that has ever been brought under the mechanism. Drawing from the lessons learnt from the Japan–Laver case, the article then offers suggestions on how the TBI might be improved in the future. The article concludes with observations on the possible implications of the TBI on China’s trade partners and the multilateral trading system as a whole.