EI-PSI Paper: GREAT EXPECTATIONS – THE FUTURE OF TRADE IN SERVICES (Feb 2000)
This is a very good overview from a progressive viewpoint of the global services trade deal that is still ruling all sorts of policy. (It has no expiration date)
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/gurn/00220.pdf
Here is the executive summary at the beginning:
By publishing this paper, Public Services International
(PSI) and Education International (EI) aim to:
promote an understanding of issues surrounding
trade in services for public sector and education
unions, especially those in developing countries; and
outline a possible campaign aimed at the next
round of negotiations on trade in services.
The paper argues that the web of agreements made
to promote the growth of international trade jeopardis-
es the central role of government in determining poli-
cies for the good of individual countries, in ways
sometimes unforeseen and unintended. The agree-
ments include the GATS as well as related agreements
such as GATT, TRIPS and the CBD.
It analyses the theory of trade in classical economic
terms. It outlines trade's development from the mercantilism of the 18
th century, the free-for-all of the 19th
,
the protectionism of the early 20
th
and the return of free
trade under rules-based agreements after World War
II, through the GATT and the WTO and now after
Seattle.
The failure of the 1999 Seattle Ministerial Confer-
ence of the WTO is but a hiccup in the development of
the web of trade-related agreements.
The paper takes the General Agreement on Trade
in Services (GATS) as its centrepiece. It discusses
the principles of GATS and how it works. It further
outlines other agreements (such as TRIPS and SPS)
that impact on trade issues and which are related to
GATS.
As far as possible throughout, the paper uses exam-
ples from the health and education services sector to
illustrate concerns.
From this, general issues are identified ñ the unfore-
seen effects of trade agreements, the domination of
trade over other agreements, how telecommunications
change the nature of services, skill drains, the practice
of cream skimming and the unrelenting development
of trade through GATS. Issues of particular relevance
to public sector unions in developing countries are
highlighted.
The paper concludes with an outline of a possible union
campaign in relation to the imminent new GATS round
of negotiations and seeks feedback from PSI and EI.