Am 1. Januar 1995 begann die World Trade Organization WTO als Nachfolgerin des Welthandelsabkommens GATT ihre Arbeit. Wie sieht die Bilanz ihrer zehnjährigen Tätigkeit aus? Welche künftigen Herausforderungen kommen auf sie zu?

Es erscheint dringend erforderlich, die Regionalpolitik in der Bundesrepublik zu überprüfen. Mängel im Fördersystem beeinträchtigen die Effizienz der Gemeinschaftsaufgabe "Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur", über die die gemeinsame Regionalpolitik von Bund und Ländern...

Unlike traditional (goods-only) trade agreements, the scope of the General Agreement on Trade in Services extends beyond the treatment of products (services) to cover that of suppliers as well. The trade interests of particular groups of suppliers, including SMEs, can thus be addressed directly...

There are various conceivable links between services liberalization and poverty reduction, including the efficiency effects associated with increased competition in intermediate (infrastructural) services, income transfers generated by workers moving abroad, or the mobilization of private...

Over the past months, it has become increasingly clear that the services negotiations under the Doha Development Agenda will not produce significant improvements on current commitments unless major new impetus is provided. In an introductory section, this paper discusses various impediments,...

Far less attention is given to the even more rapid proliferation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and their overlap with obligations assumed by WTO Members under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). About 60 per cent of world foreign investment stocks are in services and,...

Most existing commitments are confined to guaranteeing the levels of access that existed in the mid-1990s, when the Agreement entered into force, in a limited number of sectors. The only significant exceptions are the accession schedules of recent WTO Members and the negotiating results in two...

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is broader in policy coverage than conventional trade agreements for goods and, at the same time, offers governments more flexibility, in various dimensions, to tailor their obligations to sector- or country-specific needs. An overview of...

The creation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), in the Uruguay Round, and its entry into force in 1995 marked a new stage in the history of the multilateral system. It was motivated essentially by the rapid expansion of international services trade within an increasingly open...

Commitments in regional trade agreements (RTAs) that fall short of the same countries' obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are a relatively frequent phenomenon. However, they have gone widely unnoticed in the literature to date and drawn very little attention in...