중국 환율정책에 대한 법적 대응조치와 WTO 합치성 분석

The exchange rate misalignment and its potential cause to bilateral trade imbalance is a recurrent and critical issue for the modern international trade regime. The political and trade conflict between US and China in recent years is a good example and the overblown threat posed by the US Congress to correct its ever-increasing trade deficit as an alleged consequence of undervalued Chinese currency suggests limited remedial mechanism in current international economic system. From the legal and regulatory perspectives, this paper reviews whether relevant IMF and WTO provisions to a Member country's exchange rate policy can effectively address the legal issues of recent US-China currency dispute: namely, legality of exchange rate policy under the GATT XV, legality under the subsidy rules, feasibility of non-violation complaints and effective redress under the IMF regime. The IMF seems to have a direct jurisdiction over the exchange rate policy but its fundamental lack of effective enforcement mechanism may prevent countries from seeking a direct and effective redress under the IMF system. On the contrary, WTO has a better enforcemenet mechanism than the IMF system but its rules are not devised to directly and effectively deal with the trade consequences of exchange rate policy.