From European integration to domestic politics to the development of the global economy, technocracy and private ordering have shaped economic behaviour. Such transformative private-driven forces of economic activity flourished through the promulgation of voluntary standards. In view of the...

Can a WTO Member discriminate against foreign suppliers of services located in jurisdictions that refuse to share information with a government to permit it to determine if its nationals engage in tax evasion? Does it matter if the Member uses standards developed by an international body as the...

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been at the epicenter of public discussions due to its possibly adverse effects on the domestic regulation of public services. While the GATS has an admittedly broad scope, its ‘bite’ largely depends on commitments undertaken by WTO...

The current financial upheaval has brought about a reconsideration of regulatory and corporate practices in the financial sector. This paper claims that the current multilateral framework regulating services, that is, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), should be revisited to...

In the occasion of the US - Gambling ruling, this paper attempts to draw the dividing line between the four most important, from a liberalisation viewpoint, GATS provisions that appear to overlap in several instances, i.e. Articles VI, XVI, XVII, and XVIII. After demarcating the purview of these...