Domestic support disciplines under the Agreement on Agriculture are controversial, to say the least. The aggregate measurement of support (AMS) restricts Members’ policy space to provide product-specific support. The structural flaws in the determination of AMS further compel Members to explore alternatives. In contrast to the Amber Box, the Blue Box offers certain flexibilities for Members to exempt product-specific support from AMS calculation. The Blue Box reflects several elements which are seemingly typical to the Amber Box, except that it has certain production-limiting features. This article explores the legal bounds of the Blue Box measures, and its similarities and dissimilarities with the Amber Box. Towards this end, the article builds on a fresh legal understanding of the Blue Box based on its negotiating history and interpretative bounds, and also offers a fuller appreciation of market price support (MPS) and non-exempt direct payments under the Amber Box. While the calculation methodology for non-exempt direct payments bears a close resemblance to the calculation of MPS, the article argues that direct payment and MPS measures are fundamentally distinct types of product-specific support which makes the interchangeability of Blue and Amber Boxes seemingly difficult.

至少可以说，《农业协定》下的国内支持纪律是有争议的。支持的综合衡量 (AMS) 限制了成员提供特定产品支持的政策空间。确定 AMS 的结构性缺陷进一步迫使会员探索替代方案。与琥珀盒相比，蓝盒为会员提供了一定的灵活性，可以将特定产品的支持从 AMS 计算中免除。Blue Box 反映了 Amber Box 看似典型的几个元素，但它具有某些限制生产的功能。本文探讨了蓝盒措施的法律界限，以及它与琥珀盒的异同。为此，这篇文章建立在基于其谈判历史和解释范围的对蓝盒的新法律理解的基础上，并且还提供了对琥珀盒下的市场价格支持 (MPS) 和非豁免直接支付的更全面的评价。虽然非豁免直接支付的计算方法与 MPS 的计算非常相似，但本文认为直接支付和 MPS 措施是根本不同的产品特定支持类型，这使得蓝盒和琥珀盒的互换性似乎很困难。