This paper addresses a number of policy challenges arising from ongoing attempts to negotiate a plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a recently launched plurilateral negotiating initiative coexisting uneasily alongside the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in...

More than half of the World Trade Organization (WTO)-notified services trade agreements (STAs) in effect since 2008 have involved at least one (South or Southeast) Asian trading partner. Drawing on Baier and Bergstrand’s (2004) determinants of preferential trade agreements and using the World...

This paper addresses some of the public policy controversies surrounding the treatment of education services under the World Trade Organisation’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The rapid rise in cross-border trade and investment in education services observed in recent years...

Le présent document examine certains aspects du débat public que suscite le traitement des services d’éducation dans le cadre de l’Accord général sur le commerce des services (AGCS) de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC). Le développement rapide des échanges et des...

This paper explores the forces that have to date impeded the development of a multilateral set of rules on investment. The paper chronicles the policy- and rule-making debates that took place in the World Trade Organization's (WTO's) Working Group on Trade and Investment (WGTI) and advances a...

The diversity of countries that negotiate commitments in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the distinctions between their legal and constitutional systems, implies important differences in how agreements are approved, implemented, and enforced. Although consistency is among the desirable...

This paper takes stock of the forces that lie behind the recent rise of preferential agreements in services trade. Its initial focus is with a number of distinguishing features of services trade that sets it apart from trade in goods and shapes trade liberalization and rule-making approaches in...

The financial crisis of 2008--09 has cast doubt on the utility and effectiveness of the General Agreement on Trade in Services and of services trade law more broadly in providing instruments that are able to deal adequately with the trade-related regulatory fallout from the financial crisis and...