Download
1 / 12
E N D
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Edward Graham Since the nineteenth century, the dominant view of economists, at least those of the developed world, has been that an open, nondiscriminatory trading system among nations would maximize global economic welfare. It was not until 1948, however, that a major group of nations not linked by strong common cultural or imperial ties undertook to enter into a formal agreement to establish such a system. The agreement, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was initially signed by only 22 nations, but by 1979 this number had grown to almost 100.Seven multilateral tariff negotiations have been held since 1948, the results of which have been to extend the 1948 agreement. 关税与贸易总协定 爱德华·格雷厄姆 19世纪以来，经济学家（至少是发达国家的经济学家）的基本观点是，各国之间一个开放的、非歧视性的贸易体系能使世界获得最大的经济利益。但是，直到1948年，世界上一些并非由强大的共同文化或帝国纽带联系起来的主要国家才着手签定了一个正式协定来建立这样一个贸易体系。最初，仅有22个国家在该协定（即关税及贸易总协定）上签字。但是到1979年，签字国已增加到近100个。1948年以来，共举行了7次多边关税谈判，其结果是1948年通过的协议一直被延续下来。 范例欣赏
Three factors doubtlessly motivated nations to enter into the 1948 agreement. The first was the belief among many national leaders that the events leading to the Second World War were triggered by the Great Depression of the 1930s, which in turn was believed to have been prolonged and deepened by the very high tariffs enacted by virtually all of the major trading nations during the early 1930s. Liberalization of the international economic system was widely perceived as a way to avoid recurrence of a similar calamity, and in this spirit a thorough reform of the international monetary system as well was undertaken during the 1940s. 促使一些国家加入关贸总协定的无疑有下列三个因系。第一，很多国家的领导人认为，导致第二次世界大战爆发的事件是由30年代的大萧条引起的，而30年代初期几乎所有的主要贸易国所制定的高关税又延续和加深了这次大萧条。人们普遍认为，避免重遭类似灾难的一条途径是放宽国际经济体系。在这种精神的指导下，40年代对国际货币体系也进行了彻底的改革。
The second factor was the leadership role of the United States.The United States actually began the 1930s tariff escalation with the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, but in 1934 legislation was passed to enable the President to negotiate mutual reduction of tariffs on a bilateral basis. By the late 1930s, U.S. economic leaders became convinced that vastly reduced tariffs would be in the nation’s best interest if these could be regulated multilaterally. The third factor was the need to rebuild Europe following World War II. The belief of many European leaders was that an open international economic system was prerequisite to this rebuilding. 第二个因素是美国所起的领导作用。美国于1930年通过了斯穆特——霍利法案，实际上开始实施30年代逐步提高关税的政策。但是1934年又通过了立法，使总统有权通过谈判在双边互利的基础上相互降低关税。到30年代后期，美国经济界领导人深信：如果能在多国范围内加以控制，大幅度的降低关税是符合本国利益的。第三个因素是第二次世界大战后需要重建欧洲。很多欧洲领导人认为，一个开放的国际经济体系是重建欧洲的先决条件。
In the years immediately following World War II, U.S. leaders saw the GATT as only one part of a more wide-ranging program to create an open international economy. This program was to have been embodied in an International Trade Organization (ITO). Preparatory meetings for the creation of the ITO were held from the fall of 1946 through early 1948. As part of this work program, the GATT itself was drafted in Geneva, Switzerland, from April to October 1947 and was to have been part of the ITO charter. The charter itself was scheduled to be completed at the Havana Conference of 1948. 在第二次世界大战后的最初几年里，美国领导人把关贸总协定仅仅看作是更为广泛的、旨在制订一个开放的世界经济计划的一部分。该计划本准备纳入国际贸易组织（ITO）之中。从1946年的秋季到1948年初，召开了成立国际贸易组织的预备会议。作为整个工作计划的一部分，1947年4月到10月在瑞士的日内瓦草拟了关贸总协定，准备作为国际贸易组织宪章的一部分。该宪章原定于1948年在哈瓦那会议完成.
By the time a draft charter was worked out, however, the spirit of international cooperation that had prevailed in the U. S. Congress during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War had waned, and by early 1950 it became clear that Congress would not accept the ITO. A somewhat more modest proposal for an Organization for Trade Cooperation was rejected by Congress in 1955, and thus the GATT became by default the central agreement. 但是在宪章草案拟就时，第二次世界大战结束后不久在美国国会占优势的国际合作气氛冷却下来了。到1950年初，情况清楚地表明，美国国会不愿接受国际贸易组织。1955年，美国国会又否决了关于成立一个贸易合作组织的一个较为温和的建议。这样，由于建立这一贸易合作组织的计划告吹，关税及贸易总协定就成了所达成的主要协议。
Because it was seen originally as part of a wider-ranging agreement, the GATT came into effect on January1, 1948, by means of a temporary “Protocol of Provisional Application,” which established an administrative organization to implement the agreed upon articles. Had the ITO come into being, this protocol would have expired, and the administrative organization would have been absorbed into the secretariat of ITO. However, because this did not come to pass, the GATT administrative organization evolved into a permanent secretariat, now headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. 由于关贸总协定原来是作为一项内容广泛的协议的一部分，它在1948年1月1日根据临时性的“暂行实施议定书”开始生效。该协议书规定建立一个管理机构来执行已达成协议的条款。如果建立了国际贸易组织，“暂行实施议定书”就会失效，其管理机构就会成为国际贸易组织秘书处的组成部分。但是由于这未成事实，关贸总协定的管理机构就发展成为常设秘书处，目前总部设在瑞士日内瓦。
As a legal document, the GATT is not a single agreement but rather a series of agreements. The key to the document lies in article II, which makes national obligations with regard to tariff schedules an integral part of the GATT and its treaty obligations.The general negotiations produced a series of agreements by participating nations to limit tariffs on specific items to negotiated amounts, and the focus of most of the succeeding multilateral tariff negotiations has been on further tariff reductions. 作为一个法律文件，关贸总协定不只是一个协议，而是一系列协定。文件的关键在第二条。该条款把各国遵守关税时间表的义务作为关贸总协定及其条约义务的必要组成部分。参加国所举行的全面谈判制定了一系列协议，将某些特定商品的关税限制在协商同意的限度之内。以后大多数多边关税谈判的焦点都集中在进一步削减关税的问题上。
Much of the remainder of the GATT is designed to prevent evasion of the tariff obligations of article II by the use of nontariff barriers. Article III outlines a national treatment obligation wherebymember nations must not submit imports to more restrictive standards with respect to taxation or regulation than domestically produced goods. Article VII regulates customs valuation procedures, article VIII regulates import and export fees, article IX regulates required marks of origin, articleⅩprovides for transparency of trade regulations, and article Ⅺ, with exceptions, prohibits import quotas. ArticleⅩⅥ puts some restraint on export subsidies by governments. 关贸总协定的其余部分主要是用来防止以非关税壁垒形式来逃避第二条所规定的关税义务。第三条规定了个成员国的贸易待遇义务，规定成员国不得在税收和其它规定方面对进口商品采用比国内生产的商品更高的标准加以限制。第七条规定了海关估价程序。第八条规定了进出口费用。第九条规定了所要求的产地标记。第十条规定了要增加各国贸易规定的透明度。第十一条禁止进口限额（特殊情况例外）。第十六条对政府的出口补贴加以某些限制。
ArticleⅠof the GATT is the celebrated most favored nation (MFN) clause under which each member nation must give treatment to other member nations’ imports and exports that is at least as favorable as that applied to the most favored nation. From Encyclopedia of Economics 关贸总协定的第一条是著名的最惠国（MFN）条款，按照该条款，每一个成员国给予其它成员国进出口货物的待遇至少应和给予最惠国的待遇一样优惠。 译自《经济学百科全书》
Moment in Peking（3） —— “Since Heaven creates a Redjade, why does it create a Lilien?” Lin Yutang Redjade tried to go to sleep, but she could not. The words of Mochow were like a dose of soothing medicine for her, and she began to think of all they meant, and it seemed they suggested a great deal. Then she remembered that while the others had come in to see her, Afei and Lilien had not, and she kept awake. Her thoughts wandered on and on, over all the day’s experience. And she said to herself, paraphrasing the saying of the brilliant general in the Three Kingdoms about another equally brilliant general, “Since Heaven creates a Redjade, why does it create a Lilien?” 京华烟云（3）—— “既生我红玉，何以又生丽莲?” 林语堂 红玉想睡，但是却无法入睡。莫愁的话像一帖镇定剂，他开始想莫愁每一句话的意思，好象每一句话都具有深意。他又想，别人都来看她，阿非和丽莲却没有来，它于是一直醒着。她的心里却按捺不住，想东想西，把那一天每一件事都想起来。她把《三国演义》上周瑜临死说的那句“既生瑜而何生亮”？改成“既生我红玉，何以又生丽莲”？
She began to think of the famous beauties of history and romance that she had read about—of Meifei, Feng Hsiaoching, Tsui Inging, Lin Taiya, Yu Hsuanchi, Chu Shuchen. In most of the tales, there was a stupid, un-understanding man. Afei was not stupid. She knew that Afei loved her, as they had grown up together and played together. But while she was precocious, Afei was not. Neither did he fit the picture of a poet-lover in the ancient romances. If she was the chiajen (talented beauty) he was not the tsaitse (poet-lover) of the romances. He could not even make a couplet. He spoke the awful school jargon of these modern days. The telephone, the movie, the English words that he and Lilien began to mix in their speech—all of this jarred upon her. 她开始想在历史和小说上看过的美女，比如梅妃、冯小青、崔莺莺、林黛玉、鱼玄机、朱淑贞。这些故事之中，大都有一个不解人意的蠢汉子。阿非并不愚蠢。她知道阿非爱她，因为她和阿非是一齐长大、一齐青梅竹马玩儿惯的。他自己智慧开得早，阿非却不是。阿非也不是古代佳人才子故事里风雅才子那一型。所以她若是“佳人”，阿非却不是“才子”。他做一副对联都不会，嘴里说现代学校流行的怪话。电话、电影、英文单字，这些东西，她和丽莲都混用在嘴上，听来多么刺耳。
The missionary school where Redjade went was famous for teaching conversational English, but she was too good in Chinese to be good in English, for her heart was never in it. Eiglish sounds always seemed to her ridiculous, and she was so sensitive that she was afraid of pronouncing them incorrectly. Hence, though she could easily read and understand English, she never learned to speak it well. A thinskinned person cannot learn a foreign language well. At school, the students addressed each other by the English word “Miss” and she for one had rebelled against this — as if, she thought, the Chinese language had no way for addressing girls or for girls to address each other. (Lin Yutang. Moment in Peking . Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,2005 P360－361） 红玉念书的那所教会学校以教英语会话出名，但是她的中文太好，而英文不够好，因为她心不用在英语上。她总觉得英语听来太古怪，她又过于敏感，她总怕发音发错。所以，虽然他很容易就学会念英语，也能懂英语的意思，但是从来不用心学说。脸皮薄的人是没法子学洋文的。在学校，同学们是以密斯某某相称的，她就独独反对这种称呼，她以为这样岂不等于说中文没有称呼小姐的办法吗？ (林语堂著.张振玉译.京华烟云.西安：陕西师范大学出版社，2005)
