Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- PART 1 Beyond regulatory control and multilateral flexibility: Gains from a cosmopolitan GATS
- PART 2 Unexplored economic, political and judicial dimensions of GATS
- PART 3 The limits of request–offer negotiations: Plurilateral and alternative approaches to services liberalisation
- PART 4 GATS case law: A first assessment
- PART 5 Market access, national treatment and domestic regulation
- 14 Some thoughts on the concept of ‘likeness’ in the GATS
- 15 Comment: The unbearable lightness of likeness
- 16 Towards a horizontal necessity test for services: Completing the GATS Article VI:4 mandate
- 17 Comment: Quis custodiet necessitatem? Adjudicating necessity in multilevel systems and the importance of judicial dialogue
- PART 6 Unfinished business: Safeguard and subsidy disciplines for services
- PART 7 Challenges to the scope of GATS and cosmopolitan governance in services trade
- PART 8 Conclusion
- Index
- References
16 - Towards a horizontal necessity test for services: Completing the GATS Article VI:4 mandate
from PART 5 - Market access, national treatment and domestic regulation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- PART 1 Beyond regulatory control and multilateral flexibility: Gains from a cosmopolitan GATS
- PART 2 Unexplored economic, political and judicial dimensions of GATS
- PART 3 The limits of request–offer negotiations: Plurilateral and alternative approaches to services liberalisation
- PART 4 GATS case law: A first assessment
- PART 5 Market access, national treatment and domestic regulation
- 14 Some thoughts on the concept of ‘likeness’ in the GATS
- 15 Comment: The unbearable lightness of likeness
- 16 Towards a horizontal necessity test for services: Completing the GATS Article VI:4 mandate
- 17 Comment: Quis custodiet necessitatem? Adjudicating necessity in multilevel systems and the importance of judicial dialogue
- PART 6 Unfinished business: Safeguard and subsidy disciplines for services
- PART 7 Challenges to the scope of GATS and cosmopolitan governance in services trade
- PART 8 Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
Introductory remarks
The successful culmination of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), while unsatisfactory in terms of the ‘teeth’ of general obligations or the level of liberalisation commitments, provides the legal framework for liberalising the services trade. The breadth of the GATS coverage; the novelty of the issues at stake; the sectoral diversity; the specificities associated with services of which the state used to be the monopoly supplier or was involved in supplying; the regulatory intensity of several services sectors and the inherent complexity of the GATS due to the multiple modes of supply, are only few of the justifications for the deficiencies of the GATS. Thus, the GATS can still be seen as a work in progress, more than a decade after its inception.
Although WTO Members concluded the drafting of Articles XVI and XVII, they failed to agree on a provision that would tackle origin-neutral domestic regulations with an unduly trade-distortive effect. Consequently, at the end of the Uruguay Round, Members adopted the current (weak and provisional) wording of Article VI:4 GATS. Leaving this provision unfinished, together with the choice of making the national treatment obligation a negotiable commitment, has considerably weakened the potential ‘bite’ of the GATS.
For want of anything better, Members explicitly conveyed in Article VI:4 their willingness to develop, through a work programme, concrete disciplines on domestic regulation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- GATS and the Regulation of International Trade in ServicesWorld Trade Forum, pp. 370 - 396Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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