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This chapter reviews the recent wave of regional trade agreements (RTAs), to assess the benefits and costs of alternative approaches and identify the policy choices developing countries will face in negotiating regional agreements. The chapter focuses on three core issues: (1) whether services trade differs sufficiently from goods trade as to require different policy instruments and approaches in the context of preferential liberalization, whether and how RTAs may allow deeper forms of regulatory cooperation to occur, and the effects on non-members; (2) lessons learned from the practice of preferential liberalization in services in terms of market access and rule design; and (3) the legal dimension of the policy interface, focusing on a number of aspects of rule-design, including the strengths and weaknesses of existing multilateral disciplines on regional approaches to services trade and investment liberalization. A summary is provided of Article V (Economic Integration) of the GATS, including a discussion of the extent to which its disciplines are likely to allow third countries to object to provisions in proposed agreements that are detrimental to their interests. The chapter concludes with a discussion of issue areas that parties to prospective RTAs in services will need to confront and seek novel solutions to in advancing the process of services liberalization and rule-making at the regional level. The addendum to the chapter includes a discussion of liberalizing services trade in ASEAN region and in Latin America.

This chapter looks at an increasingly important part of EU trade policy — trade in services. It discusses the notion of ‘public services’ at a more general level, and then discusses the treatment of public services in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and in bilateral trade agreements in detail. Among the conclusions is that the concept of trade in services according to the GATS and according to certain bilateral trade agreements of the EC is considerably broad, because it does not define the term services and because it encompasses four modes of supply, which include investments and temporary migration to provide services. Public services, understood in a broad sense as services supplied in the general interest, are at the heart of many debates about trade in services. Most of these services are covered by the GATS and the bilateral trade agreements.

This chapter starts with brief overviews of global trade flows in services, the barriers that restrict such trade, and the economics of service sector protection and liberalization. This is followed by a summary of the main elements of the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) and a discussion of the experience obtained in the first five years of the operation of the GATS in expanding the coverage of the agreement. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of the usefulness of the GATS as an instrument for the pursuit of service sector reform. The different sections are as follows: Conceptual and empirical issues; Barriers and potential gains from reform; The Uruguay Round negotiations; The GATS; Sector‐specific negotiations and agreements; Electronic commerce; The challenge of expanding the GATS; and Conclusion.

This chapter provides a case study of the processes described in a general way in the previous chapter. The purpose is to illustrate and explore in greater depth the operation of the technicalized legal imagination, the genesis of which was described in Chapter 8. More specifically, it is to describe and understand the processes by which particular forms of technical knowledge come to guide the elaboration, application, and interpretation of international trade law, and come to be sedimented within the background commonsense that sustains and informs the operation of the World Trade Organization's legal system. The case study used is that of trade in services. One of the major innovations of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations was the creation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services. This agreement, which establishes a legal framework for the progressive liberalization of international trade in services, is in many respects an exemplary product of the formal-technical legal order described in Chapter 8.

This chapter documents the changing face of the services industry over the past three decades (1970–2000). It makes a special reference to two case studies – telecommunications and banking. Both are largely positive cases of reform leading to a more efficient provision of a range of services. There are other cases of successful reforms in the sector, including domestic shipping and civil aviation. This chapter also closely examines regulations that distort trade in services.

An account is given of the organizational structure of the WTO (World Trade Organization), which was established as a multilateral trade organization on 1 January 1995 to encompass a modified GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), its sister bodies on services (GATS) and intellectual property (TRIPS), as well as all other agreements and arrangements concluded under the auspices of the Uruguay Round. The sections of the chapter are as follows: Scope, functions and structure of the WTO; Decision‐making; Transparency: notification and surveillance; Accession; The WTO and other international organizations; Nongovernmental actors and the WTO; and Conclusion.

This chapter deals with one of the most important exceptions to the most‐favoured‐nation (MFN) rule allowed by the WTO (World Trade Organization): regional integration agreements (RIAs). Almost all WTO members are participants in one or more RIA, thus raising serious questions about the relevance of the WTO's non‐discrimination principle. The sections of the chapter are as follows: Motivations for regional economic integration; GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Article XXIV: Preferential trade agreements; GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) Article V: Economic integration; Trading blocs and the trading system; and Conclusion.

The Basic Telecommunications Agreement (BTA) marked a profound shift in the global governance regime for telecommunications. From a heavily regulated regime subject to cooperative arrangements under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), telecommunications was transformed into a globally traded service under the World Trade Organization (WTO). The BTA is a set of negotiated schedules that serves as the Fourth Protocol of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This chapter examines the WTO’s Agreement on Basic Telecommunications, and the GATS of which it is part, from the perspective of developing countries. Developing countries have more freedom that they have exercised under these agreements, but have suffered not only because of constraints imposed globally, but also because of their failure to organize themselves effectively and to pursue sound bargaining strategies.

The various mechanisms allowing for the re‐imposition of trade barriers are discussed in this chapter, which summarizes the rules on––and the economics of––the use of instruments of contingent protection. These have been very important in dealing with domestic political pressures and allowing the pursuit of non‐economic objectives. In practice, they have often been abused, to the detriment of both national and global welfare. The chapter focuses mainly on the safeguards and exceptions embodied in GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade); those of the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) are very similar or still in development. The different sections are as follows: Renegotiation of concessions; Waivers; Emergency protection and VERs (voluntary export restraints); Antidumping actions; Measures to countervail subsidized imports; Trade restrictions for balance of payments purposes; Infant industry protection; General exceptions; and Conclusion.

This chapter examines the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in promoting the liberalization and globalization of financial services, along with its implications for global financial reform efforts. The financial crisis that began in 2007 has evoked various proposals for rethinking and reforming national and international governance and regulation of the financial sector. The general consensus is that reform of the financial sector, and a new global financial architecture, must include strong regulatory measures and their enforcement. In all these discussions, international trade and the trading system have figured, if at all, only somewhat peripherally—in terms of the effects of the credit crunch on trade finance and the need to resist “protectionist pressures”. The chapter first provides an overview of the WTO's 1997 Financial Services Agreement (FSA), part of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It then considers the systemic reform processes being initiated in various forums to address the financial crisis, and argues that they are unlikely to succeed unless they involve the WTO and its ongoing Doha Round.

This chapter examines how the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treats international trade in audiovisual services. Negotiations in the WTO have pitted proponents of a trade perspective (which holds that audiovisual services should be subject to progressive trade liberalization like any other sector) against those advocating a cultural perspective (which rejects the trade perspective because of audiovisual services’ special cultural significance). The chapter considers the politics of these trade negotiations and other settings (bilateral, regional, multilateral) and argues that the cultural sector must be supported without causing undue distortions to international trade. After tracing trade disputes in the audiovisual sector, it discusses the current international trading regime for the cultural industry and looks at the status of the film industry in Canada, Mexico, and Korea.

In this chapter, I map how India negotiates agreements under GATT’s Uruguay Round by showing how protectionism by developed countries in the 1980s affected the Indian economy and particular sectors like textiles, agriculture and services, in turn, shaping their interests for more open trade. The arrival of a new GATT round served as an apt opportunity for the Ministry of Commerce, the institution that sought to alleviate constraints facing Indian exporters in these and other sectors influencing the pragmatic tack adopted at negotiations. India’s practical, yet sober, approach at the Uruguay Round was also influenced by domestic interest groups, specifically business groups and lobbies, who were keen to secure greater market access for their goods and services.

Recent research on the interaction between services trade and investment restrictions and the quality of economic regulation has shown that the productivity growth benefits from liberalization depend importantly on the quality of economic governance. We provide quantitative estimates of the extent of potential downstream productivity gains from services liberalization for EU countries and how these are conditional on domestic economic governance performance; we discuss several dimensions of the state of play in the EU with respect to implementation of the Services Directive and realization of the Single Market objective. We argue that more attention should be given to the design of services trade agreements in improving economic governance, and make several suggestions how this could be done.

This chapter provides an overview of the trade disciplines envisaged in CETA, TTIP, and TiSA. While focusing on CETA, it also takes into account available information and negotiating materials on TTIP and TiSA, concentrating on essential structures and contents and the ‘WTO plus’ dimensions of CETA, TTIP, and TiSA. The chapter outlines the main trade in goods and services disciplines of CETA and points to some fundamental issues that have remained unclear in this agreement. It also stresses essential structural differences, such as the divergent scopes of application, substantive disciplines, and scheduling approaches under the GATS agreement and CETA. Moreover, this contribution deals with the framework for regulatory cooperation to be established in CETA. Finally, this chapter turns to an analysis of available TTIP and TiSA materials, contrasting these initiatives with the contents and structures of WTO law and CETA.

The engagement of developing countries with the world economy witnessed a decline during the period from 1950 to 1980, particularly as compared with the past, but revived circa 1980 to gather momentum thereafter. Their share in world merchandise trade, exports and imports, more than doubled. But this rapid expansion in international trade was distributed most unevenly between regions, as much of it was attributable to Asia. The share of developing countries in foreign direct investment in the world economy increased at the expense of industrialized countries. Its distribution was less uneven between regions. International migration is perhaps the most significant form of engagement, underlying economic dynamism in industrialized countries and remittance inflows to developing countries. The three channels of engagement are connected and interactive. There is an obvious complementarity between international trade and international investment that runs in both directions. But international migration, through the diaspora, also drives international trade and international investment.