General
As the services sector employs more than 60% of the work force in industrial economies and an ever growing share of international trade and investment, an evolving set of rules for international trade in services will need to take into account societal concerns, such as the programme of ensuring full employment with a view to raising Member States’ standards of living proposed in the first paragraph of the preamble to the WTO (Marrakesh) Agreement. In addition to promoting the progressive opening of more service sectors and deepening the level of liberalization already achieved, the scope of the rules and obligations of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) need to evolve in the light of emerging regulatory and societal preferences and concerns, such as equity, sustainability and the need to meet the challenges of population ageing, growing international factor flows (people and capital) and new technology. At the same time, the negotiating positions of developing countries, including their quest for broader access to industrialized countries’ labour markets and identifying export markets for services, will need to be aligned with industrialized country interests, such as greater flows of foreign direct investment in developing economies.
Specific Research Areas
Emerging areas of services trade explored under IP8 will include:
- assessing the contrasting nature and level of liberalization of services supplied through the temporary movement of natural persons (TMNP) in GATS mode 4 with regional and bilateral labour market liberalization agreements and guest-worker programmes
- identifying linkages between human rights violations and the negotiated level of liberalized services commitments in WTO Member countries.
Interdisciplinary Focus
IP8 explores the underlying economic and legal foundations of services trade, including the philosophical and sociological aspects of labour migration, taking into account issues of political feasibility, such as deference to domestic regulation and the need for progressive liberalization both in market opening terms and in the rules governing competitive market access and non-discriminatory market conditions.
Method
IP8 research aims to assess the degree of openness achieved under the GATS and in various preferential trade and investment agreements covering services. It will examine the systemic implications of evolving GATS jurisprudence (US-Gambling, Mexico-Telecoms). It will also be assessing the unfinished GATS rule-making agenda in areas such as non-discriminatory domestic regulation, emergency safeguard measures and services-related subsidies. It will explore emerging lessons in services-related investment disputes under state-to-state and investor-to-state dispute settlement mechanisms, and explore the integration of competition policy into services rule-making. It will also explore how best to broaden liberalization commitments with regards to the mobility of service providers at varying skill levels at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. In approaching each of its research areas, IP8 aims to formulate policy recommendations with a view to helping the negotiating community to fill existing gaps in services rule-making.
Goals
IP 8 presents its preliminary research results in NCCR working papers and at various seminars and international conferences. The research team publishes final results in peer reviewed journals and leading publications and edits conference volumes with leading publishers. At a later stage, team members will begin to formulate policy recommendations for adoption in preferential agreements and at the multilateral level pertaining to their respective fields of research.
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Research Projects 
