WTO贸易政策审议机制透明度功能的实现困境与提升路径

The Implementation Dilemmas and Improvement Paths of the Transparency Function of WTO Trade Policy Review Mechanism

贸易政策审议机制(TPRM)作为一项专门性的透明度机制,包含国际透明与国内透明的价值追求,并通过提前干预与全面性描述的方式,对WTO成员方贸易政策透明予以实现。然而,TPRM在发挥其透明度功能时,却存在贸易政策国内透明实现有限、贸易政策信息供给不平衡、贸易政策信息质量不理想等问题。这主要是由于TPRM在制度设计上存在内在和手段的缺陷。内在缺陷表现为透明度概念本身存在较大的模糊性,且TPRM实现透明度要求的法律基础尚不清楚;手段缺陷表现为政府报告与秘书处报告过于依赖接受审议成员方信息的提供,缺乏必要的约束措施保证贸易政策信息的准确性与充分性。对TPRM透明度功能进行提升,应当明确WTO一般性的透明度原则作为TPRM实现贸易政策透明的法律基础,并从实现场域、维度、方式三个方面予以澄清。

The Trade Policy Review Mechanism(TPRM),as a specialized transparency mechanism,includes the value pursuit of international and domestic transparency,and through proactive intervention and comprehensive coverage to achieve transparency of WTO members’trade policies.However,when TPRM practices the function of transparency,there are problems such as limited domestic transparency of trade policy,imbalance in the supply of trade policy information,and unsatisfactory quality of trade policy information.This is mainly due to the inherent and methodological flaws of TPRM in the system design.The inherent flaws are that the concept of transparency itself has a large ambiguity,and the legal basis for TPRM to achieve transparency is unclear.The methodological flaws are that the government reports and the secretariat reports rely too much on the information provided by the members under review,and lack the necessary restraint measures to ensure the accuracy and adequacy of trade policy information.To enhance the transparency function of TPRM,it is necessary to further specify that the WTO’s general transparency principle serves as the legal basis for TPRM to realize the transparency of trade policies,and to clarify it from three aspects:field,dimension,and method.