Assessing the General Agreement on Trade in Services: Half Full or Half-Empty?

This chapter focuses on the outcome of seven years of negotiations in one of the so-called “new” areas covered by the Uruguay Round, namely trade in services. The world of multilateral trade diplomacy now contains a body of legally binding disciplines aimed at the liberalization of trade and investment in services hardly seems surprising. The need for the multilateral trading system to catch up with the times appears all the more justified when viewed against the growing importance of services in world trade. The chapter aims to sketche out the Agreement&s;s structure and key provisions. It assesses the Agreement from a rule-making perspective, focusing in particular on some of the “architectural” changes that may already need to be envisaged to strengthened the Agreement. The chapter describes a preliminary assessment of some of the practical implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services for globally active service-supplying firms.