TISA and the GATS

What is it about?

Measured by the standards of the commonly binding multilateral rules, in Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), many current regional trade agreements (RTAs) in services are deficient. This includes agreements involving the 50 odd WTO Members that are currently negotiating a Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). While possibly improving significantly on many liberalising commitments contained in their current GATS schedules, they also introduced new restrictions and definitional framework provisions for which no GATS equivalents exist. Should these attempts continue, TISA could not live up to its proclaimed objective of promoting future multilateral liberalisation.

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Why is it important?

Taking TISA as an example, the article deals with a frequently ignored threat to the multilateral trading system: the proliferation of regional agreements that are inconsistent with the parties' commonly binding WTO obligations. In order to prevent legal chaos, the article proposes a possible course of action. If the parties were properly motivated...