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China's Rare Earth Trade: Health and the Environment*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2014

Charles Kilby
Charles Kilby*
Affiliation:
American University. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Rare earth elements (REE) captured a startled world's attention during the 2010 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands crisis, when it appeared that China withheld access to them during its border dispute with Japan. China asserts that its sovereign right to environmental regulation and national production quotas is unassailable. However, China's trade measures appear to be inconsistent with WTO rules, as well as with environmental protection and conservation, since they incentivize illegal mining and smuggling practices. In an upcoming case (DS431), the United States, the European Union, Japan and 16 third parties will argue before the WTO that China's trade measures on rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum constitute discriminatory behaviour and are illegal. This raises the question of whether China is inappropriately using the environment as a defence against allegations that its rare earth trade policies are in violation of its WTO obligations.

Keywords

Rare earth elementsChinaenvironmentWorld Trade Organization (WTO)
Type
Research Report
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 218 , June 2014 , pp. 540 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2014 

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Footnotes

*

Special thanks to Dr Judith Shapiro, who has inspired my interest in China for many years and provided helpful insights and encouragement on this project. This research was made possible through the financial support of a Boren Fellowship. The author is solely responsible for the content of this research.

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