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ESTUDIOS Y ANÁLISIS: DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO
The GATS turns ten: A Preliminary Stocktaking
The paper
discusses the experience to date with the implementation and application of
the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), some ten years after its
entry into force. One striking observation is the smooth functioning of the
Agreement, which has created far less tensions and frictions, including at
Ministerial Meetings, than its difficult negotiating history might have
suggested. This is due in large part to a high degree of flexibility at
several levels: Members have more scope than under the GATT to depart from
common horizontal obligations, in particular the MFN principle; they are
able to adjust the breadth and depth of their trade commitments (market
access and national treatment) to particular sector conditions; and they
face less constraints, if any, in the use of trade-related policies such as
subsidies, export restrictions, or domestic regulatory interventions. An
additional source of flexibility is the uncertainty still surrounding a few
core concepts of the Agreement and their sometimes daring application in
individual schedules. While the ongoing negotiations also provide an
opportunity for technical corrections of scheduling problems, the basic (built-in)
flexibility elements of the Agreement — including the bottom-up approach of
undertaking sector commitments and the possibility of inscribing limitations
under individual modes — will, of course, persist. (Their actual relevance
may, nevertheless, differ significantly between 'old' Members and countries
negotiating their accession to the WTO.) Given the broad reach of of the
Agreement in terms of membership, sector application, and modal coverage,
flexibility may be considered a conditio sine qua non. There is little
reason to believe that a more rigid structure would have been acceptable to
Uruguay Round participants and, even if so, that it would have proven stable
and resilient over time. However, flexibility may come at a cost: lack of
meaningful obligations across a reasonably broad range of service sectors.
Vested interests may find it far easier than under the GATT to defend their
privileges and defy more rational and harmonized trading conditions. While
the paper discusses formula-based approaches that have been proposed to
improve the quantity and/or quality of sector commitments within the
existing framework of GATS, there should be no illusion about the scope for
technical solutions to what constitutes a political and institutional
challenge. |
