The Regulation of International Trade, Volume 3: The General Agreement on Trade in Services

by Petros C. Mavroidis

Overview

A comprehensive analysis of GATS that considers its historical context, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.

The previous two volumes in The Regulation of International Trade analyzed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the first successful agreement to generate multilateral trade liberalization, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for which the GATT laid the groundwork. In this third volume, Petros Mavroidis turns to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a WTO treaty that took effect in 1995, and offers a comprehensive analysis that considers the historical context of the GATS, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.

Mavroidis examines the GATS through its negotiating record, considering whether the GATS as it is can appropriately address the concerns of the world trading community. The GATS deals exclusively with non-tariff barriers (NTBs)—precisely the instrument that the WTO has not managed to tame—and one of some significance in light of the digital revolution, which has enlarged the scope of cross-border transactions in which neither supplier nor consumer needs to travel for a service to be consumed. Mavroidis argues that the GATS has brought about a platform to liberalize services, and has locked in some pre-GATS liberalization. What is missing, he contends, is a “GATS-Think” that would generate liberalization from now on.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262044554
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	11/24/2020
Pages:	752
Product dimensions:	7.31(w) x 9.31(h) x 1.59(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Petros C. Mavroidis is Edwin B. Parker Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. He was previously a member of the Legal Affairs Division at the World Trade Organization.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

List of Abbreviations xiii

I The Advent of Gats 1

1 Before the GATS 3

2 Negotiating the GATS 71

3 Property Rights in the GATS 123

Conclusion to Part I 163

II The Gats Disciplines and Institutions 169

4 The Integration Model and Design of GATS 171

5 The Scope of the GATS 191

6 Domestic Regulation 249

7 Most Favored Nation (MFN) 291

8 Remaining General Obligations 333

9 Specific Commitments 349

10 Transparency 399

11 Exceptions and Deviations 411

Conclusion to Part II 443

III Sector-Specific Analysis 447

12 Financial Services 449

13 Telecoms 507

14 Transportation 545

15 Labor Mobility 573

Conclusion to Part III 597

16 GATS and Beyond 601

Notes 615

References 681

Index 709