WTO上诉机构的产生与运作研究

WTO上诉机制在解决国际争端和解释国际条约等方面取得了引人瞩目的成就。从上诉机构成员的组成、来源和工作方式等方面考察,上诉机构作出高质量裁决报告的原因,包括人员的高素质、负责任等主观原因以及秘书得力、遵循先例等客观原因。上诉机构在理论和实践层面也存在一定问题,包括上诉机构成员的知识背景、遴选的政治考虑和连任的制度设计等。作为当今世界唯一的解决国家间争端的上诉机制,WTO上诉机构在国际法治方面起到了示范作用,但是在理论和制度方面都有待完善。     

上诉机构停摆后的WTO争端解决

世界贸易组织(WTO)上诉机构的停摆虽然对WTO产生了巨大的影响,但并不意味着其争端解决机制的终结。我们不应该扔掉整个皇冠,即使它上面的宝石出现了裂缝。通过对上诉机构停止运作后将主导WTO争端解决机制的若干方案及其利弊的考察分析可见,WTO上诉机构的停摆对于目前及未来发生的贸易争端将意味着,WTO争端解决尤其是如何处理专家组报告将从一揽子、统一适用的模式进入到多元化、碎片化的模式。当前,在贸易保护主义、单边主义抬头,“逆全球化”浪潮时隐时现,多边贸易体制处于风雨飘摇之际,如何继续保证WTO规则的一致性和捍卫以规则为基础的多边贸易体制,将是摆在WTO成员面前的迫切课题。中国需要与其他成员一起,通过必要的革新和改进,致力于为上诉机构重新恢复运转寻求永久且迅速的解决方案。     

论世贸组织中专家组和上诉机构报告的执行问题

世界贸易组织设立了专家组和上诉机构负责审理有关贸易争端,但是专家组和上诉机构作出的报告是否得到了完全的、正确的执行,是一个经常引起争议的问题.只有专家组和上诉机构的报告能够获得完全的、正确的履行才能实现解决争端的目的.但是在现有的世贸规则中,由于<关于争端解决规则与程序的谅解>第2l条和第22条之间规定的含糊不清,关于报告的执行缺乏明确、具体的规定,使得专家组或上诉机构报告的执行往往难以达到预期的目的.     

论WTO宪政对争端解决机构法律解释的影响

有关WTO宪政的论断不断出现在学者的著述中,同时也受到WTO成员方和国际社会的普遍关注。一些学者认为,准司法的争端解决机制促使专家组和上诉机构可以超越职权,能动地进行"司法造法"。而事实上,无论是WTO的宪政安排抑或是具体法律解释规则的规定,都限制了司法能动的发生。     

The Decisional Juridical Discourse of the Appellate Body of the WTO: Among Treaties and Dictionaries as Referents

This present paper is devoted to the analysis of the decisional juridical discourses of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization. For this end, we decided to develop the research around two poles which shall be approached in an interweaving manner: the first concerns an examination of the methods of interpretation adopted by the Appellate Body and the second, which is a consequence of the former, devotes itself to the problem derived from the interpretation of authentic international treaties in more than one language. In the light of these two approaches we can verify that the interpretation of the Appellate Body is highly influenced by the search for the purpose of the text and the construction of the juridical discourse in question is made with reference to the linguistic system analyzed as a dictionary. It was established, that the Appellate Body carries out a dictionary interpretation with a tendency, even incipient, to consider the linguistic versions of the World Trade Organization Agreements. Finally, the task is structured having as a backdrop two interdependent concepts which should not be neglected in an analysis of international juridical discourses. They are the following: ?juridical culture’ and ?language’. Both will be dealt with from a semiotic perspective since the central element of our study – and of the intersection between these two concepts – is the linguistic sign.     

Reasonable Interpretation: A Radical Legal Realist Critique

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - The notion of reasonable interpretation of legal texts, as opposed to the absurd or unacceptable...     

试论WTO争端解决机构的法律解释权

根据WTO的规定,部长会议和总理事会拥有对WTO协定和多边贸易协议进行解释的专有权力;而专家组与上诉机构也可以在解决具体争端过程对WTO涵盖协议进行解释。作为争端解决报告的一部分,专家组与上诉机构的法律解释对争端当事方具有约束力。但由于WTO不存在严格的"遵循先例"原则,因此争端解决机构在特定案件中作出的法律解释在法律上也不具有先例效力;然而却具有事实上的先例效果。由于争端解决报告在事实上的先例效力,引发了关于争端解决机构"造法"的问题,有必要采取措施防止争端解决机构超越权限进行法律解释。     

Objectivity,Interpretation, and Rights: A Critique of Dworkin

Law and Philosophy -     

功利主义批判：学术自由的道德解读

学术自由是大学之所以为大学的核心。迄今为止 ,尽管基于外在视角的功利主义哲学为学术自由提供了极其重要的和有效的辩护 ,然而 ,由于在功利主义的视野里 ,学术自由仅具工具性价值 ,因此 ,学术自由又不可避免地会同样基于功利主义的考量而受到侵犯。对学术自由的辩护无疑还需立足于学术自由自主性的内在视角的道德审视。它不仅划定了学术自由赖以存在的外在界限 ,而且事实上也构成了对学术自由的功利主义辩护的基本前提。     

WTO专家组和上诉机构举证责任分配标准的合理性分析

WTO专家组和上诉机构为了完成其迅速而有效地解决争端的义务,在DSU没有对举证责任分配规则做出任何规定的情形下,在判例中基本采用了谁主张谁举证的原则,同时,也发展了一些举证责任分配规则和标准。遗憾的是,专家组和上诉机构的实践表明,他们并没有严格遵守其形成的相关举证责任分配规则,其形成的相关标准也缺乏合理性:传统的谁主张谁举证原则由于忽视了实质公平,在WTO审理实践中容易被滥用;例外规定与排除规定之间存在区别的分析多此一举;重要性等级标准缺乏合理性及例外规定作为举证责任分配的标准既没有法律依据,其合理性也受到质疑。这必然削弱了WTO争端解决机制的权威性,因此,对WTO专家组和上诉机构所形成的举证责任分配规则和标准实行必要的改革,已成为当务之急。     

Appellate Court Supervision in the Federal Judiciary: A Hierarchical Perspective

In this article, we examine factors that influence appellate supervision in the lower tiers of the federal judicial hierarchy. Drawing on the insights of agency theory, we develop a framework to assess the determinants of circuit panel decisions to affirm or reverse federal district court rulings. Our analysis of U.S. Courts of Appeals' published civil rights decisions over a 29-year period (1971–1999) offers support for several hypothesized relationships. As expected, the outcome of appellate review varied with the level of agreement between the preferences of the circuit (as principal) and the policy position of the trial court (as agent). In addition, we found that circuits were more likely to affirm trial court decisions that were contrary to the preferences of the federal district court judge, suggesting that circuit judges may rely on ideological signals when evaluating appeals before them. We also hypothesized that the monitoring activities of circuits would be influenced by individual circuits' relationship with their principal, the Supreme Court. Consistent with these expectations, panels were more likely to reverse district court rulings that were incongruous with the policy predisposition of the High Court. In addition, as Supreme Court scrutiny of a circuit increased, the likelihood of a circuit panel subsequently reversing a district court also increased. Although further inquiry is necessary to clarify the interpretation of this result, the finding does suggest that district courts are more likely to engage in decision making that deviates from circuit preferences when that circuit faces more intense supervision from the Supreme Court.     

美国宪法解释中的原旨主义——一种学术史的考察

对于原旨主义的争论如同美国当前的宪政联邦一样古老,从这个意义上而言,美国的宪政历史就是伴随着关于宪法解释正确方式的争论逐渐成长起来的。原旨主义是其中重要的一种宪法解释理论,主张解释宪法时要依据制宪者的原初意图或者宪法文本的原初含义;原旨主义处于一个不断变化的过程,这种变化使得原旨主义在不同的时代表现出不同的特征。新旧原旨主义的不同主要体现在三个方面:新旧原旨主义的理论特征;新旧原旨主义与司法自制和民主的关系;从意图原旨主义到文本原旨主义的转变。无论旧原旨主义还是新原旨主义都必须解决如何确定宪法原旨的问题,意图原旨主义和文本原旨主义都面临着同样的困难。新原旨主义忽略或者并没有解决宪法先定约束和后代民主之间的冲突。     

Appellate and trial court caseload growth: A pooled time-series-cross-section analysis

This is an econometric study of factors behind filing growth since 1970 in state trial courts and, especially, appellate courts. The model posits two categories of variables: those affecting the supply of disputes and those affecting the costbenefit considerations of potential litigants. The study uses a pooled time-seriescross-section design and a fixed-effects regression procedure. The overall conclusion is that factors determining the supply of disputes overwhelm other factors entered in the model. At the trial level, economic conditions 2 years earlier strongly affect civil filings, and crime rates for the current and prior year have moderate impacts on criminal filings. The output capacity of trial courts, measured by the number of judges, has a strong impact on appeals. Economic conditions and trial court filings influence civil appeals in later years, and prison commitments influence criminal appeals. The great majority of cost-benefit factors, such as simplification of appellate procedure and interest-rate differentials, showed little or no impact on appeals.In view of the rising emphasis on replicability (Dewaldet al., 1986; Campbell, 1986; Cook and Zarkin, 1986), we stress that the data for this research are available from the Inter-Univarsity consortium for Political and Social Research, and we will provide copies of the computer printouts giving the programs (that apply SAS) and the results. In addition, Court Studies periodically updates the data set, and it will supply current data upon request.     

WTO义务减让表的解释问题

本文论述WTO减让表的法律解释问题。专家组和上诉机构对减让表的解释仅仅局限于《维也纳条约法公约》31、32、33条的运用,而忽略了减让表谈判、草拟、缔结的单边性,导致减让表的解释面临重重困境。本文梳理了专家组、上诉机构在个案中解释减让表的具体步骤,指出减让表解释目前面临困境的根源,提出减让表解释可以援用其他的解释方法。减让表解释的研究意义主要在于开阔眼界,认识到发挥WTO裁判机构司法能动性的重要意义,促进法律解释学的发展以及国际法最终体系化的发展。     

WTO: US and Argentina settle dispute over patents and data protection

In May 2000, supplementing an earlier complaint filed in May 1999, the US filed a complaint against Argentina, alleging that its patent laws violate the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (the TRIPS Agreement). The gist of the US complaint was that Argentina's law failed to provide: (1) adequate protection against "unfair" commercial use of undisclosed test data submitted in order to get market approval of pharmaceutical products; (2) certain safeguards for compulsory licences on an invention granted on the basis of inadequate working by the patent holder; and (3) adequate measures to prevent infringements of patent rights. The US also alleged that Argentina denies certain exclusive rights of patent holders, such as the exclusive right to import the patented product into the country. At the end of May 2002, the US and Argentina notified the WTO that they had reached a "mutually agreed solution," without prejudice to their respective rights and obligations under WTO agreements, and the US has withdrawn its complaint.     

论我国禁赌斗争的长期性和艰巨性

历史与现实表明,全世界赌博从来未曾禁绝过,成为一种经久不衰的社会历史现象。在经济飞速发展、科技突飞猛进、法制日渐完备的今天,赌博仍是社会的一处独具“魅力”的风景线,城乡赌风日盛,屡禁不止,已成为一大社会公害,禁赌任务十分繁重。之所以如此,与赌博自身的本质特性分不开,也与复杂的历史和现实原因密切相关。因此,禁赌斗争必然是一场攻坚战、持久战。