WTO安全例外条款面临的挑战与我国的对策——以网络安全问题为主要背景

Challenges Facing the Security Exception ofthe WTO and China's Strategies—Taking the Issue of Cybersecurity asthe Main Background

安全例外是GATT/WTO法律体系中一个十分重要而特殊的例外。为了在维护各国的基本安全利益与防止对安全例外的滥用之间达成平衡,WTO安全例外条款一方面赋予援引该例外的成员很大的自由裁量权,另一方面试图将援引限制在几种特定情形下。冷战结束以来,网络安全等非传统安全事项的日益突出,对WTO安全例外条款提出了新的挑战。应当采取'疏导'和'围堵'并用的策略,将非传统安全事项纳入该条款中'基本安全利益'的范围,同时为该条款确立若干底线,防止该条款被过度扩大解释和滥用。中国在处理网络安全审查制度等问题时,宜本着'恪守善意、适度突破'的原则来推动该条款的发展。

The security exception is an important and unique exception in the GATT/WTO legal system.In order to strike a balance between the two competing needs of maintenance of essential security interests by members and prevention of its abuse,the security exception of the WTO grants wide scope of discretion to the members invoking the exception on the one hand,and attempts to limit the invocation to several specific circumstances on the other hand.Since the end of the cold war,cybersecurity and other non-traditional security issues have loomed large in international relations,which has posed new challenges to the security exception of the WTO.This paper argues that the WTO and its members should adopt a strategy combining dredging and constraint,which aims to include non-traditional security issues into the scope of“essential security interests”under the security exception,and also to set some bottom lines for the exception,so as to prevent its expansive interpretation and abuse by members.When dealing with relevant issues including the network security review system under consideration,China should push forward the development of the exception based on the two principle of good faith and careful breakthrough.