A multilateral intergovernmental organization, the World Trade Organization administers several trade-related agreements. These agreements mandate that member governments will not engage in xenophobic discriminatory practices and will adopt transparent regulatory practices that affect international trade. The WTO grew out of the “Uruguay Round” of negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that was signed in 1947.
Overview. In the general design of WTO agreements, governments adopt specific commitments as to principles of free trade. They also bargain for reciprocal commitments from other countries, which are adopted as “schedules” to the multilateral agreements. The schedules contain the commitments made by individual WTO members allowing specific foreign products or service-providers access to their markets. Such commitments set standards for minimum legal protection of foreign service providers and suppliers to access local markets. The WTO agreements contain many exceptions, which can be the subject of intergovernmental disputes and can block access to local markets.
Overlap with Other, Non-WTO Treaties. The WTO agreements overlap with other international agreements, including:
- bilateral agreements (such as bilateral free trade agreements (“FTA’s”), bilateral income tax conventions for the avoidance of double taxation, bilateral investment treaties (“BIT’s”) and treaties of friendship, commerce and navigation); and
- regional agreements (such as multilateral free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”) and the Caribbean commercial agreement (“CARICOM”) and the European Union).
The WTO agreements provide more protection to investors and foreign service providers because the WTO framework imposes standards for governmental commitments for trade liberalization. These include:
- transparency of legislative and regulatory environments affecting trade in global services;
- an open (consensual) rulemaking process that involves mutual and reciprocal commitments through bilateral and multilateral bargaining; and
- legal certainty through published commitments under multilateral agreements.
Specific WTO Treaties. We have prepared detailed analyses of various WTO agreements in the context of business process outsourcing. Click below for more our analyses.
General Agreement on Trade in Services (“GATS”)
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”)
Other WTO agreements are more limited, applying to limited BPO sectors such as governmental procurement and trade-related investment-related measures.
Click below for access to these agreements.
Agreement on Government Procurement
Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures
References:
www.wto.org
www.wipo.org