Carbon and Oxygen stable isotopes in carbonates have long been the important geochemical tracers. Studies on the isotopic compositions can provide insights into the paleoclimatic processes, the paleoceanic environmental processes and the geological processes as well. Researches of more than four decades in the field, especially from the early 1980s on, during which the analysis of the isotopes in fossil brachiopods and early diagenetic cements has contributed much to the knowledge, achieved appreciable progress. However, problems still remained with how to explain the data that already existed on the isotopic compositions of carbonates, on which there is a dichotomy between those who advocate that the data represent the original characteristics of the isotopes and those who argue that the data have been altered diagenetically; with how to select the samples of carbonate for analysis of the isotopic ratios, which has a set of criteria, namely, the microstructure, the Cathodoluminescence and trace elements, for tests of the sample preservations; with whether the fossil brachiopods′shells have vital effects on the isotopic compositions, on which there is a tendency toward the existence in recent years; with to what extent the living environment variations of the fossil affect their carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios and with the utilization of early diagenetic cement as analyzing samples. Along with the problem raising, this paper reviewed the
methods on, and new developing trends toward, the problem-solvings, as well as the up-to-date advances of studies on each problem.