Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Enfant Terrible’: Australia and the Reconstruction of the Multilateral Trade System
- 2 Coming to Terms with Multilateralism
- 3 Damage Control, Policy Stasis and Diplomatic Paralysis
- 4 Policy Innovation, Diplomatic Departures and the Uruguay Round
- 5 The Cairns Group
- 6 Aggressive Multilateralism: Negotiating Services
- 7 The American Way? Aggressive Bilateralism in Australian Trade Policy
- 8 The WTO System in Crisis
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Departments and Ministers responsible for GATT/WTO Negotiations
- Appendix 2 GATT Trade Runds
- Notes
- Index
6 - Aggressive Multilateralism: Negotiating Services
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Enfant Terrible’: Australia and the Reconstruction of the Multilateral Trade System
- 2 Coming to Terms with Multilateralism
- 3 Damage Control, Policy Stasis and Diplomatic Paralysis
- 4 Policy Innovation, Diplomatic Departures and the Uruguay Round
- 5 The Cairns Group
- 6 Aggressive Multilateralism: Negotiating Services
- 7 The American Way? Aggressive Bilateralism in Australian Trade Policy
- 8 The WTO System in Crisis
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Departments and Ministers responsible for GATT/WTO Negotiations
- Appendix 2 GATT Trade Runds
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Despite its long-time reputation as a single-interest participant in the GATT, Australia was one of the most prominent players in the Uruguay Round negotiations which led to the new General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Although overshadowed by its high profile diplomacy in the Cairns Group, nevertheless Australia's contribution to the services negotiations far outweighed its importance in world services trade. Yet this episode in Australian trade diplomacy remains virtually unknown. This chapter seeks to rectify that gap through an analysis of Australia's approach to the new issue of services. Coalitional diplomacy was not an option in the services negotiations, in part because services was a new area for negotiation and consequently had little previous ‘baggage’. Instead Australia adopted another strategy open to small states, that of facilitator and ‘ginger group’ activist. As facilitator, Australia contributed technical and intellectual expertise in highly conflictual and complex negotiations. Australia's influence also derived from its active participation in a ginger group which worked to keep momentum in the negotiating process and to keep the services agreement as broad and clean as possible. Especially salient in this regard was Australia's negotiating objective of securing a fair and equitable multilateral framework for trade in services liberalisation. Indeed, Australia emerged as the leading proponent of non-discrimination, in marked contrast to the United States which sought to minimise MFN obligations under the GATS – an ironic reversal of their positions in the original 1947 GATT negotiation.
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- Australia and the Global Trade SystemFrom Havana to Seattle, pp. 146 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001