Hoekman, Bernard; Mattoo, Aaditya --- "International trade: trade in services" [2007] ELECD 94; in Guzman, T. Andrew; Sykes, O. Alan (eds), "Research Handbook in International Economic Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Research Handbook in International Economic Law

Editor(s): Guzman, T. Andrew; Sykes, O. Alan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843766742

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: International trade: trade in services

Author(s): Hoekman, Bernard; Mattoo, Aaditya

Number of pages: 38

Extract:

3. International trade: trade in services*
Bernard Hoekman and Aaditya Mattoo



One of the major results of the Uruguay Round was the creation of a General
Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). By establishing rules and disciplines
on policies affecting access to service markets, the GATS greatly extended the
coverage of the multilateral trading system. This chapter discusses the rules
and disciplines of the GATS. It does not deal with regional integration initia-
tives, of which the pre-eminent example to date is the European Union. The
focus is on the GATS because it is the only multilateral set of binding disci-
plines on trade in services.
As an integral part of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the GATS
entered into force on January 1, 1995. A major innovation for the global trad-
ing system, which until 1995 covered only trade in goods, the GATS was the
result of a 15-year discussion that commenced in the early 1980s. Services
were put on the multilateral trade agenda at the initiative of the US. A first
attempt to put services on the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade) agenda was made during the 1982 GATT Ministerial meeting. This met
with resistance on the part of many GATT contracting parties. While no
consensus on launching negotiations in this area proved possible ­ indeed, the
1982 Ministerial broke down ­ the meeting did result in a subsequent GATT
work program under which the major players agreed to undertake national
studies of their services sectors ...