Like tariffs and other border measures, national regulatory barriers impede international trade. Unlike tariffs, however, such barriers usually indicate an important domestic policy choice. This 'conflict of interest' has emerged as a crucial issue in international law, particularly with regard to services, such as telecommunications and health services. This study is the first to analyze the potential impact of incompatibilities between national regulatory regimes and the rules and obligations imposed by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). In the process of arriving at his challenging concluding theses, the author investigates such relevant concepts as the following: the political and ideological dynamics of GATS negotiations services trade liberalization in regional integration systems, particularly in EC law policies common to diverse national regulatory systems the notions of 'deregulation' and 'privatization' the human rights implications of international trade law the GATS obligations of market access, national treatment, and most-favoured-nation treatment the role of the WTO's dispute settlement organs GATS transparency obligations Professor Krajewski's study is of enormous significance to specialists in regulatory policies and instruments at all national and sectoral levels, especially in the context of ongoing GATS negotiations. As the author warns: Unless GATS negotiators and national regulators have a thorough understanding of the relationship between GATS obligations and regulatory policies and instruments, they cannot effectively use the flexible elements of GATS and could reach an agreement which they may later regret.

This books examines whether public service liberalization poses a threat to gender and human rights?

The first comprehensive analysis of the applicability of international trade law to digital services at multilateral and regional levels.

Trade in services, far more than trade in goods, is affected by a variety of domestic regulations, ranging from qualification and licensing requirements in professional services to pro-competitive regulation in telecommunications services. Experience shows that the quality of regulation strongly influences the consequences of trade liberalization. WTO members have agreed that a central task in the ongoing services negotiations will be to develop a set of rules to ensure that domestic regulations support rather than impede trade liberalization. Since these rules are bound to have a profound impact on the evolution of policy, particularly in developing countries, it is important that they be conducive to economically rational policy-making. This book addresses two central questions: What impact can international trade rules on services have on the exercise of domestic regulatory sovereignty? And how can services negotiations be harnessed to promote and consolidate domestic policy reform across highly diverse sectors? The book, with contributions from several of the world's leading experts in the field, explores a range of rule-making challenges arising at this policy interface, in areas such as transparency, standards and the adoption of a necessity test for services trade. Contributions also provide an in-depth look at these issues in the key areas of accountancy, energy, finance, health, telecommunications and transportation services.

Both in WTO law and EU law there is a dichotomy between liberalisation based on market access and targeting domestic regulation. Consequently, both regimes share the problem of distinguishing national measures impairing market access and those that do not have such effect. Looking at the provision of services, a cornerstone of EU substantive law, in the EU and the WTO this book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the current legal status quo on transnational services provision on a global level. Based on thorough analysis of both EU and WTO law, policymakers are provided with concrete proposals for fostering the consistency and effectiveness of the current regime. A final chapter discusses possible approaches to regulation such as home state rule, host state rule and mutual recognition from a comparative perspective. Written by a highly respected author team, this is essential reading for EU internal market specialists and WTO law scholars alike.

International rules on trade in services and intellectual property are ?new? additions to the multilateral trading system, but both have played an important role in the system since their entry. Accompanied by a detailed introduction, this volume contains essays which cover not only the law and jurisprudence of these topics but also the underlying economics and politics behind their incorporation into the multilateral system and continued prominence. The volume provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the development of these controversial and increasingly important areas of international trade law.

External relations is currently among the most dynamic areas of EU law, its institutional structures profoundly affected by the Lisbon Treaty. This volume gathers leading analysts to assess core recent developments in the field, taking stock of the current law and potential developments in major policy areas. The volume opens with an assessment of a central concept at the heart of EU external relations, underpinning its international identity. Christophe Hillion analyses the legal principles which ensure coherence between different strands of the EU's external activity, and the contribution of law to the consistency of the EU's international presence. Frank Hoffmeister turns the focus outwards to the interaction between the EU and the international legal order - the legal basis for the EU's activity in shaping international law and the EU's contribution to 'state practice'. These opening chapters develop a picture of the EU's active international participation as well as the characteristic structural complexity of its external relations, and against this background the remainder of the book examines key policy areas of EU external action. Lorand Bartels analyses the relationship between trade policy and development; Markus Krajewski discusses trade in services and the link between external and internal policy issues; and Nathalie Tocci assesses the EU's contribution to conflict resolution, an important focus of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. The complex policy picture that emerges from the different goals, values and instruments across these areas is examined in the book's final chapter which focuses on the European Neighbourhood Policy, frequently proclaimed as a strategic priority for the EU. Together, the essays present a clear picture of the complex development of EU external relations, of the struggle for coherence in the increasingly active, visible and self-conscious role played by the EU as a participant in the international legal order.

This training module highlights the central contribution of services to development and the role of trade and investment liberalization and effective regulation in key service sectors. It distills a number of policy- and rule-making insights arising from the practice of trade and investment liberalization in services at both the multilateral and preferential levels, with particular focus on negotiating issues and sectoral challenges emerging in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

An in-depth analysis of the legal criteria that the WTO sets for preferential trade agreements in the area of services.

This is the third book in the series Legal Issues of Services of General Interest. The book focuses upon a set of research questions on the recent developments in the emergence of services of general interest (SGIs) as a distinct EU concept. This includes, inter alia, the emergence of universal service obligations and the way they are regulated in the EU in primary and secondary law, the range of soft law communications adopted by the Commission to create a distinctive EU concept of SGIs, the residual role of hard law in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the special problems created by Social Services of General Economic Interest and the interaction of procurement and state aid law with SGIs. A new perspective is offered in this book: some of the issues faced by the EU in accommodating SGIs into a regulatory framework are found also in the policy of the WTO and in least developed countries (LDCs).