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ABSTRACT
The WTO dispute settlement system is in crisis due to the persistent blockage of the appointment of Appellate Body members by the United States. This paper reviews the US criticisms against the Appellate Body and argues that its allegations are unfounded and its approach is wrong. To deal with the US blockage, various proposals have been made, with the most popular being the Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) set up by several key Members including the European Union and China. After a thorough analysis of the key features of the MPIA from both theoretical and practical perspectives, this paper argues that the MPIA fails to provide a proper solution to the Appellate Body crisis due to its many defects. Instead, the paper suggests the appointment of Appellate Body members based on majority voting at the General Council. This paper concludes by noting that only such a rule-based solution can not only solve the current Appellate Body crisis but also deter similar attempts to sabotage the WTO dispute settlement system in the future.

Since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China's exports have been growing exponentially. In 2009, China became the world's top goods exporter. Four years later, China unseated the United States as the top trading nation in the world. In contrast to the burgeoning Chinese economy, the United States and Europe have been suffering from economic decline since the global financial crisis in 2008. China regards its rise as a long overdue restoration of its rightful position, as it has been the largest economy in the world for most of its history, except the brief aberration over the past 150 years. The Western powers, however, view China's rapid development with suspicion, as they attribute China's success mostly to its state-led development model, with state-owned enterprises, massive subsidies, and heavy government intervention playing a major role.

This article reviews the evolution of rules on digital trade in US Free Trade Agreements (US FTAs), and argues that the US approach has shifted from treating it largely as a traditional trade issue to recognizing its unique digital nature and tailoring the rules accordingly, as it has done in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. The article begins with a review of the efforts to regulate e-commerce in the WTO, as well as the achievements of the pre-TPP US FTAs so far, followed by a critical appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the e-commerce chapter in the TPP. It is hoped that, by reviewing the evolution of the regulation of e-commerce from theWTOto the TPP, we can learn some lessons on how the rules are being shaped, as well as how they might evolve in the future.

In November 2001, China finally acceded to the World Trade Organization after a marathon accession negotiation that lasted 15 years. As China's accession coincided with the launch of the Doha Round, many commentators predicted that China's participation in the trade negotiations would have significant impacts on the Round. However, this has not proven to be the case. What have been the approaches taken by China in global trade negotiations? Why did China adopt these approaches? How did China's different negotiating approaches affect the dynamics of trade negotiations? These are the questions addressed in this article. The paper argues that China started as a reluctant player in the negotiations, and only gradually made its way into the core decision-making group of the WTO rather late during the round. Even though China has now been accepted as a member of the G-7, the most powerful group in the WTO, it has been playing only supportive rather than leading roles. The article explains the reasons for such low profile approaches, and also examines the value of Chinese proposals from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The article concludes with some thoughts on the broader implications of China's growing power in the WTO as a whole. (China Perspect/GIGA)

When the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP Agreement or P4 Agreement) was signed in 2005, it was hailed as a 'high-standard' agreement that could serve as a model for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) within the Asia-Pacific region. This claim seems to have received support from recent events, such as the launch of the accession negotiation by the US and the expression of interests from a host of other countries.
This article provides a critical analysis on whether the TPP Agreement is a 'high-standard' agreement as its members have claimed. After comparing it with other FTAs, this article notes that the P4 Agreement does not distinguish itself among FTAs and has failed to provide higher market access concessions or stricter disciplines on protectionist policies. This is followed by a discussion on the possible factors that might explain the mismatch between the rhetoric and reality of the P4 Agreement. This article concludes by considering how the P4 Agreement could be re-engineered to fulfil its original expectations.

To many observers, a major challenge raised by China's accession to the WTO is whether the WTO dispute settlement system could cope with China, one of the major traders in the world with an economy that is halfway between a planned economy and a market economy. In this article, the author tries to answer this question by reviewing China's experience in the WTO dispute settlement system. Historically, the senior leadership in China attached disproportionate importance to the WTO dispute settlement system and preferred to avoid using the system. Thus, in the first four cases in which China was sued or threatened to be sued in the WTO, China tried to keep a low profile and settled the cases with the complainants. As more and more cases are being brought against China, however, the effectiveness of the WTO dispute settlement system as a trade policy tool in dealing with China has gradually faded away. This is illustrated by China's reactions to the cases brought against it over the past two years, where China has taken a more and more legalistic approach. While China, just as any other WTO Member, has every right to use the WTO dispute settlement system, an over-aggressive strategy against China runs the risk of dragging everyone into trade wars, which is not conducive to the solution of trade disputes.

On 10 November 2001, China finally acceded to the World Trade Organization (WTO) after a marathon negotiation spanning 15 years. China's membership in the WTO raises interesting questions for both the WTO and China. For the WTO, the question is how to deal with China?a huge country of growing importance as a major global exporter and importer but is still in economic transition. For China, the question is how to implement the numerous obligations in the WTO accession package. This paper sets out by reviewing China's experience in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO. It then discusses the benefits and challenges arising from China's WTO accession, in particular the challenges arising from market access commitments and rules obligations. The author is of the view that whilst the market access commitments are relatively easy to deal with, the rules obligations may have much broader implications on both China and the multilateral trading system. This is especially true for the WTO-minus rights provisions which are embodied in the Accession Protocol and Working Party Report of China. Finally, the author analyses the actions taken by the Chinese government since its WTO accession to implement the commitments and to deal with the challenges, and suggests some trade policy reforms.

While there has been an extensive literature on the challenge procedure of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) in general, as well as excellent country studies on the operation of the national challenge procedures of several key GPA Members, no such study has been conducted for Hong Kong yet. In the view of the author, even though Hong Kong has a relatively small procurement market, it combines the features of a clean and effective government and a highly internationalised procurement market, and thus makes an interesting subject of study. In this article, the author examines the efforts made by the Hong Kong Government to implement its obligation under the GPA to provide challenge procedures. The article starts by reviewing Hong Kong's participation in the government procurement agreements under the GATT and WTO, and then sets out the general background to the Review Body for Bid Challenges of Hong Kong. In the next section, the article discusses in detail the bid challenge procedures and how such procedural rules have been applied and elaborated through the cases that came before the Review Body. The article concludes by noting that the bid challenge system in Hong Kong generally conforms to its GPA obligations.