SCM協定第14條之適用及審查權限──從WTO對國營事業補貼行為之實務見解談起

The Application and the Standard of Review of Article 14 of SCM Agreement--from the Perspective of the WTO Rules and Practices on the SOE subsidies

為淡化政府介入市場的色彩，補貼措施常會由政府透過國營事業以商業行為之模式為之，此舉也使得國營事業之一般商業行為與政府補貼變得難以界定。政府或其國營事業透過商業活動提供補貼之行為，因對市場的公平競爭造成不利影響，雖受到GATT第十七條及WTO之補貼暨平衡稅措施協定（SCM協定）所規範，然而在許多涉及判斷補貼是否存在之WTO案例中，控訴國常因無法證明被控訴國或其國營事業之商業活動存在授與企業利益之要件而敗訴。造成SCM協定無法有效規範補貼之原因之一，尤其是對於非市場經濟國家所採取的補貼措施，就是在於平衡稅措施無法有效地發揮其抵銷補貼效果之作用。此一說法亦可從實施平衡稅之主要國家，尤其是美國，在WTO爭端解決機制上常吃敗仗中看出。然而，若再進一步探究實施平衡稅措施在WTO實務上所面臨的困難，除了在事實認定上，爭端解決機構有往重新審查原則移動之傾向值得警惕外，WTO會員國對於SCM協定相關要件之解釋亦常難以掌握，例如比較基準之決定及改採替代基準之要件等。再加上證據取得之困難性，往往使得平衡稅措施因無法通過WTO爭端解決機構之審查而失去其貿易救濟之功能。為了處理此一問題，進一步透過案例瞭解其實際認定方式並給予調查機關較大的裁量空間，或許可以找到解決之方向。

In order to erase concerns of government intervention in the market, subsidy measures are often manipulated through the state-owned enterprises in the form of commercial behaviors by governments, which also makes it difficult to draw the lines between the ordinary business behaviors and subsidies handed over by the state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Those kinds of subsidies provided through the commercial activities of SOEs have had adverse effects on fair competition in the international and domestic markets. Although SOE's commercial activities are bounded by Article XVII of the GATT and SCM Agreement under the WTO framework, the function of WTO in tackling the problems caused by SOEs is still skeptical. In several WTO cases involving assessment of the legitimacy of countervailing duties, the defending Members constantly failed to hold onto their investigating authorities' decisions because of the inability to prove the existence of benefit conferred to the enterprises. How to prove that specific industries accepted benefit conferred by the SOEs is fairly a decisive element in the WTO dispute settlement procedures, as well as the standard of review hold by the WTO Panels and the Appellate Body. One of the reasons that the SCM Agreement can't properly deal with the problems of subsidies especially happened in China, is the countervailing measures can't function effectively as a trade remedies tool. This argument has also been alleged by the countries, which use CVD as an important instrument to defeat cheap imports, especially the United States. However, if we further explore the difficulties in defending the decisions of CVD, in addition to the fact determination, which the Appellate Body seems to have a tendency to move to the principle of de novo review, most of the problems seem to be raised by the blurring definition of the terms, such as market benchmark, alternative benchmark, prevailing market condition and so on. Hence, for understanding the interaction between the decisions of benchmarks and the dimension of de novo review, this article attempts to explicate the issues about how to decide the benchmarks used to calculate the benefit conferred and which standard of review the panels and the AB choose, through analyzing the recent WTO cases.