The General Agreement on Trade in Services

The significance of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”) 1 cannot be overestimated. For the first time in history, this framework agreement extends multilaterally agreed commitments and rules to the area of International trade that has grown the fastest over the last fifteen years. It is estimated that the annual growth rate of exports of services during the period 1985–1999, measured on a balance-of-payments basis and primarily covering cross-border supply and consumption abroad, amounted to over nine percent per annum, while the growth in exports of goods amounted to 8.2 percent per annum. 2 in fact, based on a conservative estimate, trade in services would appear to have trebled in that fifteen-year period to $ 1.2 trillion in 1999 and now accounts for a quarter of all cross-border trade.

With a contribution from Dale B. Honeck, Counsellor, WTO Services Division, on Domestic Regulation.

General Agreement on Trade in Services, Apr. 15, 1994, Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (“WTO Agreement”), Annex 1B, 33 International Legal Materials (I.L.M.) 1125 (1986), reprinted in The Legal Texts: The Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiation (1999) (“ The Legal Texts ”) at 284–319.

Trade in Services: Using Openness to Grow, in Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries , World Bank (2002), chapter 3, at 69, 71 (source Fifth Balance of Payments Manual IMF, 1993) (“IMF BoP Rev. 5” or “BPM5”)).

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Introduction

Terms of Trade

Terms of Trade

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Amsterdam Center for International Law, Amsterdam Mary E. Footer ( Deputy Director and Member )
2. Department of international Law, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam Mary E. Footer ( Deputy Director and Member )
3. Baker & McKenzie, London Carol George ( Attorney )

1. Mary E. Footer