GATS Basics - Revisiting Some Basic Notions and Concepts of the General Agreement on Trade in Services

Abstract

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is one of the most interesting but also complicated international agreements that emerged from the Uruguay Round in 1994. Its complexity is due to its flexibility, unfinished provisions and the inclusion of a built-in agenda for future negotiations. Multiple interpretive issues are still open. Some of them were subject to judicial review by the WTO adjudicating bodies (for instance, in US - Gambling), whereas other remain to be interpreted in WTO judicial proceedings in the future. This paper forms part of the author's contribution to the Elgar Encyclopedia of International Economic Law (2017), edited by Thomas Cottier and Krista Nadakavukaren.

Keywords: General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), World Trade Organization (WTO), trade in services, market access in services, domestic regulation in services, schedules of commitments

JEL Classification: F13, L88, N70, K33, F02, F53, F55