The GATS – A Sleeping Beauty?

Abstract

To a certain extent, the WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has remained in the shadow of its precursor in merchandise trade, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Apart from some sector-specific liberalization moves in the wake of the Uruguay Round (UR), i.e. after January 1995, it has attracted relatively little attention as a multilateral instrument to further advance and bind liberalization in services trade. Moreover, there are still gaps in the Agreement’s framework of rules which remain to be filled. By the same token, the GATS has given rise to far fewer trade disputes than the GATT, despite its particularly broad structure in terms of permissible trade policy measures, application to product and factor flows (capital and labour), co-ordination problems within and between national administrations, and overlaps with other policy instruments, in particular investment treaties. This article intends to provide an overview assessment of what has been achieved under the Agreement and the many remaining challenges and uncertainties. In the end, it would be for forward-looking WTO Members, as in the past, to promote and defend a ‘public good’ called multilateralism in all its facets. Unfortunately, such Members are in short supply at present.