On March 26, 2014, a panel, established by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, circulated its final report regarding the China — Rare Earths case to WTO Members. This dispute concerns China’s export restrictions on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum. In its report, the panel agreed with the findings of another dispute, the China — Raw Materials case. It concluded that the environmental exceptions under Article XX GATT 1994 cannot be applied to China’s actions. This conclusion is reconfirmed in the latest appellate body’s report of China — Rare Earths on August 7, 2014. Therefore, China was not able to justify the violation of their WTO-plus obligation to eliminate all export duties, contained in paragraph 11.3 of China’s Accession Protocol. As a consequence of the panel’s decision, it seems impossible for China to justify trade barriers with environmental interests and to invoke any exceptions. Such findings are subject to a fundamental controversy within the WTO multilateral trade system, trying to solve the tensions between environmental protection and trade liberalization. This essay examines the general applicability of environmental exceptions by analyzing the panel’s and appellate body’s approaches to the China — Rare Earths case and their findings, in connection with the purpose of sustainable development as prescribed by the preamble of the WTO Agreement. It has to be examined whether the non-application of the WTO environmental exceptions complies with Article 31 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and is consistent with the balance between the different values pursued by the WTO. This article argues that Article XX GATT 1994 should be applicable to China’s WTO-plus obligation specified in paragraph 11.3 of its Accession Protocol as far as environmental interests are concerned.

In the context of WTO dispute settlement, the precautionary principle is a predominant concept, in the face of serious risks and scientific uncertainty, that is often characterized as “better safe than sorry.” Although the precautionary principle appears in various treaties, declarations, and even laws, it is often formulated in abstract terms, leading to the great ambiguity of its primary elements. The Panel and the Appellate Body always avoid discussing the precautionary principle in WTO cases due to its obscure definition. On March 13, 2012, the United States, the European Union, and Japan each requested consultations with China as China’s measures that made restrictions on the exportation of rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum had been in conflict with their national interest. After examining the matter at issue, the Panel and the Appellate Body rejected China’s arguments regardless of its repeated claims about its consideration of environmental protection. With the case as the starting point, this article focuses on the precautionary principle and explores its status and elements, in order to establish a two-dimensional model of the precautionary principle that is applicable in international trade.

The “Precautionary principle” is regarded as the new buzz phrase in the discussion of risk regulation relating to the areas of environment and health. Article 5.7 of the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measure (SPS Agreement) uses a similar approach to the protection of human, animal and plant life, and health. It is important to pay close attention to some of the relationships concerning the precautionary principle and Article 5.7. Firstly, when a member decides to take sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, they usually act from the perspective of prudence and precaution. In addition, the precautionary principle finds similar expression in Article 5.7. However, the precautionary principle has not been explicitly written in the SPS Agreement as a ground for justifying the SPS measures in situations that are inconsistent with the obligations set out in the Agreement. The case law shows that the Panel is very careful about the use of the language of precaution. The Appellate Body is reluctant to allow the precautionary principle to override the specific obligations in the Agreement. Whether Article 5.7 can be regarded as an application of the precautionary principle needs to be examined. Under the current discourse, however, this article finds that the precautionary principle cannot by any means be used as an interpretative tool for Article 5.7. Reliance on the precautionary principle to trigger Article 5.7 is supposed to be unsuccessful. As in situations where taking SPS measures threats the environment and health become irreversible, more attention should be paid to practical issues to ensure the necessity and efficacy of the measures.

Law is an important tool for national governments to promote the transition to a low carbon energy sector. However, law is the servant of national politics and policies and is embedded in a wider institutional environment, both nationally and internationally. This comparative analysis of the United Kingdom (UK) and China shows that, although national law plays a role in supporting the transition to a low-carbon energy system, the nature of the law and the role it plays depends greatly on the wider institutional environment. The UK is a parliamentary democracy and a liberal market economy. Therefore, the laws passed by the legislature form a critical part of the framework for the low-carbon transition. In contrast, the authority of the executive in China allows the executive to govern the energy sector through decrees and regulations, and diminishes the role of law passed by the legislature. Energy law and policy in both the UK and China are formulated in the light of the prevailing energy policy paradigm: the market-oriented regulatory state paradigm in the UK and a state-centered paradigm in China. Together, these differences explain the contrasting experiences in promoting the low-carbon transition, in general, and the deployment of renewable energy in particular.

The statute of private international law of Chinese mainland and Taiwan nearly updated at the same time. It is probably beneficial for the scholars across the Taiwan Straits to learn from each other’s experiences. This article compares the similarities and differences on selected aspects between these two statutes, including the historical development of the legislation on private international law of Chinese mainland and Taiwan, amendments on the terms of nationality and habitual residence in the new statues, differences in the lex personalis, the application of the most significant relationship doctrine and characteristic performance approach, recast of the intellectual property rights terms, new categorization of contract and the protection of weak party, the dilemma of judicial discretion or private autonomy on the applicable law of tort, etc. Additionally, this article makes suggestions to improve the legislation and promote the civil and commercial communications between Taiwan and Chinese mainland.

In recent years, the proposition that the abolition of consular jurisdiction was the start of the late Qing legal reforms was challenged. According to the arguments of scholars engaged in subverting the traditional mainstream view, the “Mackay Treaty” was signed on September 5, 1902, but Empress Cixi issued the “Law Reform Decree” on her way back from Xi’an after the Gengzi Event, then the Qing government’s decision for law reform was not a consequence of Article 12 of the “Mackay Treaty.” This article argues that methodology of historical textual research requires a comprehensive view of the whence and whither. The traditional view that the abolition of consular jurisdiction served as an urgent cause for the modernization of Chinese law cannot be rejected imprudently by a superficial approach to pounce on one point and ignore all others; our vision should be broadened by taking the overall situation into consideration. Otherwise over-corrections will result in an incomplete view of the whole scenario. The relation between the law modifications in late Qing and the reclamation of consular jurisdiction is extremely intricate and complex. Previously this had to be discussed by Robert Hart and others in detail.

Many principles controlling the modern western civil law, such as consideration, prescription and capacity, have taken shape in history. This paper, from a historical perspective, explores the logic and rationale behind Chinese common law by focusing on the formation of contract in the Qing Dynasty. The first section shows that in the Qing Dynasty, the delivering of the subject matter was a basic requirement to form a loan contract between two parties. However, an agreement for transferring the item in advance worked as a consensual and bilateral contract, and the aggrieved party could ask for compensation or contractual fine or retain the deposit when the other party broke the contract. The second section argues that in the Qing Dynasty, the writing of a loan contract (Shuqi) is not a contract in and of itself, but is only one of the forms of contracts. The writing worked as the primary evidence of the existence of a contract. In the third section, the requirements of consideration and prescription are used to understand the practice of civil trials in the Qing Dynasty. Back then, when the loan contracts provided by two parties entailed some defects, the judges would adjudicate a loan dispute on the basis of consideration, with an assumption that people acted in their own interest and only in this sense were their acts rational. The judges could also identify the right(s) of parties due to the lapse of time. The fourth section argues against the view that equality was not used as a principle to form civil contracts in Chinese history. In Ancient China, there was indeed inequality between officials and laymen and within family or clan. However, in the Qing Dynasty, the different social status of the parties had little to do with the formation of contract. The restrictions for junior individuals (e.g. beiyou) to dispose his family property were actually restrictions on their capability instead of limitations on his capacity to enjoy private right or to have private obligation.