魏尚进、余心玎：如何重振世贸组织 | 趋势
■本文选自《复旦金融评论》
■作者：魏尚进 复旦大学泛海国际金融学院学术访问教授、哥伦比亚大学终身讲席教授；余心玎 对外经济贸易大学国际经济贸易学院经济学副教授
■公众号：复旦金融评论
世界贸易组织的上诉机构正在面临的威胁来自美国而不是中国。美国正阻挠世贸组织新法官遴选。重振世贸组织需要变革其规则，但废除其争端裁定机制并不是解决之道。
本文共计2018字，预计阅读时长4分钟
拉至底部，阅读英文原文
在这种国际普遍规律下，我们可以检验其他国家是否认为中国带来了特别头痛的问题。为此，我们将1995~2017年间所有其他世贸组织成员对中国出口商提出的反倾销/反补贴案件总数（相对于中国出口量）叠加在同一张图表上。自从中国于2001年入世以来，此类案件与出口数量的比例随着中国收入的增加而下降，也与国际平均经验所预测的情况相吻合。换句话说，跨国比较数据表明，中国的贸易行为与其他世贸组织成员国相比并未带来什么特别的问题（当然中国的体量意味着针对中国上诉案的绝对数量较大）。
从世贸组织创始之刻一直到最近，从未有人想过美国这个世贸组织规则的主要制定者会选择废除其上诉机构。但这场戏似乎正在上演。2017年以来，随着世贸组织的几位在任法官四年任期陆续结束，美国全面系统地否决了其他国家提名的所有继任者，而这样做的目的想让该体系陷入停摆，直到其他国家同意以美国的意愿再次更改规则。
重振世贸组织就难免要改变其游戏规则。今后也许应该采用通过多数或绝对多数投票去任命上诉机构法官，从而让任何一个国家都不能单方面阻止候选人的任命。此外，根据贸易量的增长，该机构或可扩容为15名法官并延长其任期，也可以暂时延长最后三名法官的任期。
不过，仅有这些措施还不够。与时俱进地改进世贸组织在国有企业、政府采购、反倾销案件和数字贸易方面规则也符合美国、中国以及其他国家的利益。但无论这些国家希望进行何种改革，扼杀该组织的争端解决体系都不是解决方案。
向上滑动阅览英文原文
Before China joined the WTO in 2001, many feared that its membership could doom the organization in one of three ways. First, Chinese rule breaking might be so common, skeptics claimed, that it would trigger an explosion of cases against the country that would overwhelm the appellate body of seven judges. Second, China might express its grievances by bringing countless potentially frivolous cases against other countries, which would also exceed the organization’s capacity constraint. And, finally, China might ignore any WTO ruling against it, undermining the system’s credibility and usefulness.
None of that happened. Of the 349 trade disputes brought to the WTO for adjudication since the end of 2001, China has been a defendant in 44, or 12.6% of the total – in line with the country’s 12.8% share of global exports in 2018. Interestingly, this number is fewer than the 99 brought against the United States and the 52 brought against the European Union during the same period. Part of the reason is that China has continued to reduce tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, and ease investment restrictions, in accordance with – and sometimes going beyond – the terms of its WTO accession agreement. In fact, few countries have reduced such barriers more than China has during this period.Likewise, China has not turned out to be an overly aggressive complainant. Since December 2001, China has lodged 21 cases at the WTO, or 6% of the total – lower than its 10.8% share of global imports in 2018. Strikingly, this number also is substantially lower than the 55 cases lodged by the US, and the 46 filed by the EU.Large countries tend not to have a perfect record of complying with WTO rulings. But of the 44 cases against China since 2001, other countries have had to return to the WTO to secure better compliance only twice, compared to 15 times in the 99 cases against the US over the same period.The WTO allows individual member countries to have their own national systems for enforcing trade rules, particularly regarding subsidies and dumping (selling below cost). This may be interpreted broadly as part of the rules-based global trade framework. Using data for 2017, we find that the number of anti-dumping and countervailing (anti-subsidy) cases lodged by all WTO member countries against exporting countries (the log value of which is on the vertical axis of the graph below) tends to decline as the income level of the exporter increases (shown by the log value on the horizontal axis).
Each blue dot on the graph represents a WTO member economy, and the solid black line shows the international average (drawn from all member economies excluding China). The data pattern is fairly clear: as a country becomes richer, there are fewer anti-subsidy or anti-dumping cases against it. This could be because richer countries observe rules better, are less likely to attract complaints as their labor costs rise, or some combination of the two.Given this international pattern, we can check whether other countries have considered China to be a special problem. We do so by superimposing on the same graph the total number of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases lodged against Chinese exporters by all other WTO members from 1995 to 2017, relative to China’s export volume. Since China’s accession in 2001, the number of such cases relative to exports has declined as China’s income has increased, much as the average international experience would have predicted. In other words, cross-country comparative data suggest nothing especially problematic about China. (Of course, China’s size means that the absolute number of cases against China is large.)Until recently, no one would have thought that the US, a key architect of the rules governing the WTO, would choose to kill the organization’s appellate body. But that is what appears to be happening now. Since 2017, as the body’s current judges have completed their four-year terms, the US has systematically rejected any proposed successor nominated by other countries, apparently with the aim of rendering the system inoperative until other countries agree to alter the rules to America’s liking.
Any WTO dispute-settlement panel is required to have at least three judges. So, with two of the appellate body’s three remaining judges having completed their terms on December 10, the organization’s “highest court” is now functionally dead.Since the WTO was established in 1995, global GDP has grown by about 250% on acumulative basis, while global trade has increased by about 270%. A professional disinterested process for adjudicating trade disputes between countries has been key to this success. Because larger countries always have greater bargaining power than smaller ones in bilateral or regional trade negotiations, this process has helped to level the playing field in favor of the WTO’s vast majority of small- and medium-size members.Resuscitating the WTO will require changing its rules. Perhaps appellate body judges should be appointed by a majority or supermajority vote, so that no single country can block a nominee. In addition, the body could be expanded to 15 judges, in line with growth in trade volumes, and appointees’ terms could be lengthened. Or the terms of the last three judges could be extended temporarily.But none of these measures will be enough. The US, China, and other countries also have an interest in modernizing WTO rules regarding state-owned firms, government procurement, anti-dumping cases, and digital trade. Whatever reforms these countries wish to see, killing the organization’s dispute-settlement system is not the solution.-END-
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