A Comment on China\u27s Participation in the World Trade Organization

This comment discusses two papers presented at the US-China WTO Roundtable sponsored by the Institute of International Law of The Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. The paper by Zhang Naigen examines treaty interpretation in dispute settlement under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Professor Zhang observes that WTO panels will have to interpret the underlying provisions in non-WTO treaties, namely the intellectual property rights treaties overseen by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The paper by Yang Guohua points out the paradox that although the WTO permits governments to utilize import safeguards, in all six cases where such measures were challenged, the WTO found that the import barriers violated the WTO Agreement on Safeguards. Three of those cases were against the United States, and the other three involved complaints against Chile, Argentina, and Korea. Dr. Yang therefore reaches the startling hypothesis that although safeguards are permitted in theory, in practice they are not