ON THE OPENNESS AND REGULATION OF LEGAL SERVICES IN CHINA UNDER THE GATS

Along with the trend of economic globalization in the world, the World Trade Organization (the WTO) was established to better serve the economic and commercial development of the international community. The GATS is Annex 1B to the Agreement Establishing the WTO, which was signed on 15 April 1994. Both the WTO and the GATS came into effect on 1 January 1995, and the GATS contained specific commitments and other relevant provisions of various categories of services, including legal services. In the Report of the Working Party on the Accession of China (WT/ACC/CHN/49), China has made specific commitments on legal services in 2001. After joining the WTO, China opened its legal service market and has the obligations to adjust its regulations on legal service trade in order to be consistent with the GATS. However, due to various reasons, China is encountering challenges in regulating and supervising its legal service sector. Against this background, this research has been undertaken for the purpose of addressing those challenges and providing policy recommendations to relevant authorities. This dissertation focuses on topics of openness, regulation and supervision of legal services in China under the GATS. The author applies a number of important methodologies in the research in order to achieve proper conclusions and to make reasonable suggestions. Those methods include literature review, comparative study, case study and empirical analysis. By using those methods, the author could further analyze and study on her important chapters dealing with regulation and supervision of legal profession in China. The thesis can be divided into three parts and 11 chapters. At the outset of the research, the author reviews the research background and current research literatures on GATS at home and abroad, compares advantages and disadvantages of various research methods, and introduces the structure and main content of the research. Then, she