TBT協定處理非政府規範多重交錯現象之可能與限制

Abstract

近年來國際貿易之發展方興未艾，為了維持全球價值供應鏈之穩定發展、確保供應商於產品製造過程中符合採購方業者之要求，並反映市場終端消費者購物偏好之改變，市場上紛紛出現五花八門之非政府規範，於該等非政府規範之有效實施下，能夠為國際貿易帶來許多正面的影響，其中包含許多原本市場上無法單純透過價格機制而獲得處理之外部性問題，均能夠在政府採取強制性規範措施前，透過非政府規範而獲得較為妥善之處理，就此而言，非政府規範之蓬勃發展能夠為國際貿易帶來較為正面之影響，從而應予以相當程度之肯定。 然而，此類非由政府機構所制定而適用於產品之規範措施，對於那些無法遵循此類非政府規範之供應商而言，仍然形成一定程度之貿易障礙，特別是當為處理相同或類似之規範目的，而市場上出現多個相類似之非政府規範時，對於供應商而言，為了將其產品成功地銷售至特定市場，則可能必須要同時符合此等非政府規範，包含其部分相似和部分不同之製造程序要求、內容、認證和稽核程序等，此種非政府規範形成之多重交錯現象可能對產品供應商造成不亞於政府規範措施之貿易限制程度。 鑒於WTO國際貿易法律體系下，TBT協定含有部分可適用於非政府規範之義務，本文將嘗試探討適用TBT協定處理非政府規範多重交錯現象之可能與限制，其中包含TBT協定對於非政府規範之適用範圍及義務內涵、「非政府機構」一詞於TBT協定下之意義和範圍、非政府規範多重交錯現象可能違反TBT協定義務之情形、以「合理可行措施」條款要求WTO會員管制非政府規範措施之義務內涵，以及WTO會員能透過何種具體的合理可行措施處理非政府規範多重交錯現象。最後，本文將從WTO多邊貿易政策觀點檢視非政府規範多重交錯現象之問題，並提出若干多邊貿易政策工具，俾以解決TBT協定處理此類貿易問題時所面臨之侷限。

Against the background of the prosperous development of international trade, various types of private regulations have been put into the market, in order to maintain the steady development of global value chains of products, ensure suppliers manufacture the products in full compliance witht the request of buyers, and reflect the changing tastes and preference of end-consumers in the market. Those private regulations, if effectively implemented, can produce many positive influence to the international trade, which may include resolving a number of externality problems that originally cannot be resolved by simply relying on the price mechanism in the market. For that reason, the rapid development of private regulations is able to bring about positive influence to the international trade, and should thus receive the credit. However, for those who are unable to comply with those product regulation (that are adopted by institions other than the government), they still constitute trade barriers to some extent. Especially, when there exist multiple similar private regulations in the market to address the same or similar objectives, suppliers might have to comply with all of them in order successfully sell their products to the particular market. Such compliance may entail production procedure requirements, contents, certification and auditing procedures which are partially similar and partially different. As a result, the trade-restrctiveness derived from the multiplicity of overlapping private regulations might not be less than those derived from a mandatory measure adopted by a government. Considering that under the WTO trade law system, TBT Agreement include some provisions applicable to those private regulations, the thesis aims to discuss the possibility and limits of addressing the multiplicity phenomenon of private regulations under the TBT Agreement, which include the following issues: the coverage scope and substantial obligation of TBT Agreement to private regulations, the meaning and scope of “non-governmental body” under the TBT Agreement, the circumstances in which the multiplicity of private regulations phenonmen might be inconsistent with the TBT Agreement, the meaning of the “take such reasonable measures as may be available” clause, and the possible action which is reasonable and available for a government to take, in order to address the multiplicity of private regulations phenomenon. Lastly, the thesis will examine the issue of multiplicity phenonmenon of private regulations from the perspective of WTO multilateral trade policy, and provide some of the multilateral policy tools to deal with the limits facing by the TBT Agreement when addressing the trade issue of this kind.