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GATSWTO General Agreement on Trade in Services |
What is the
WTO? What is
GATS?
Why is GATS important for libraries?
EBLIDA
Working Group on Trade and Libraries Useful
Links
Latest
news
The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995 and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. With a membership of 140 countries, the WTO is the only global international organisation dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world's trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. These agreements are the legal ground-rules for international commerce.
The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business and to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. Areas covered by the WTO include goods, services, intellectual property, dispute settlement, trade policy reviews, competition policy, electronic commerce, environment and regionalism.
GATS is the General Agreement on Trade in Services. Ranging from architecture to value-added telecommunications and beyond, services are the largest and most dynamic component of both developed and developing country economies. It is said that services account for sixty per cent of world production and are the biggest single employer in most countries. Within the European Union, services account for two thirds of EU GNP and twenty five per cent of exports.
Only recently, however, have services become the subject of multilateral trade negotiations. New technologies facilitating the supply of services e.g. satellite communication, the opening up in many countries of long-entrenched monopolies e.g. telecommunications and the gradual liberalisation of hitherto restricted sectors such as banking and insurance, combined with changes in consumer preferences and expectations, have helped to boost international services flows. In turn, the economic stakes involved imply that there may be a similar risk of frictions and distortions in services trade and, thus, a similar need for multilateral disciplines as in the area of goods General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This has led to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the WTO's agreement on the service sector.
The text of the GATS agreement
GATS is the first ever set of multilateral, legally-enforceable rules covering international trade in services. GATS operates on three levels: the main text containing general principles and obligations; annexes dealing with rules for specific sectors; individual countries’ specific commitments to provide access to their markets. GATS also has a fourth element: lists showing where countries are temporarily not applying the “most-favoured-nation” principle of non-discrimination. These commitments are an integral part of the agreement. So are the temporary withdrawals of most-favoured-nation treatment. Negotiations on commitments in four sectors took place after the Uruguay Round (1994). A full new services round, the Millennium Round started as required in GATS, in 2000.
Read the text of the GATS agreement (Annex 1B General Agreement on Trade in Services).
Under the Uruguay Round of talks in 1994, publicly run services were excluded from the GATS. A new round began in early 2000, the so-called Millennium Round, with proposals to expand the services covered. The Millennium Round covers all internationally-traded services with two exceptions: services provided to the public in the exercise of governmental authority, and traffic rights in the air transport sector.
Sectors under discussion include financial and professional services e.g. accountancy, architecture, legal and engineering; electronic commerce, wholesale and retail distribution sectors, postal and express delivery services and energy services. The following sectors are of special interest to libraries and archives:
Sector 2CJ: Telecommunication services - online information and database retrieval;
Sector 5: Educational services - primary, secondary, higher education, adult and other educational services;
Sector 10C: Recreational, Cultural and Sporting Services - Libraries, archives, museums and other cultural services.
Although GATS excludes non-commercial, public services, "market-based segments" could become open to inclusion.
Libraries could face competition from foreign for-profit library services and suppliers;
national treatment may have to be offered to these suppliers in competition with publicly funded services;
professional standards and qualification requirements may be challenged as a barrier to trade.
EBLIDA is aware that eighteen countries have already made commitments covering the sector Recreational, Cultural and Sporting Services - Libraries, archives, museums and other cultural services. These include Bolivia, Gambia, Iceland, Sierra Leone, Venezuela, Central African Rep., Guinea-Bissau, Japan, Singapore, Ecuador, Hong Kong, New Caledonia, USA. It is essential that the library community is aware of these developments and can defend their interests.
EBLIDA Working Group on Trade and Libraries
With the European Union as one of the main negotiating partners (the others are the US, Japan and Canada), the promotion of library and archive interests in trade policy areas and services has been given priority within the annual EBLIDA work programme.
The EBLIDA Working
Group
on Trade and Libraries aims at monitoring developments, it advises on a European library and archive policy
and liaises with other interest groups. The Working Group consists of:
Kjell Nilsson, BIBSAM, Sweden (Chair)
María Pía González Pereira,
Netherlands (EBLIDA Director)
Toby Bainton, SCONUL, UK
Frode Bakken, Norwegian Library
Association, Norway
Harald von Hielmcrone, State and
University Library, Denmark
Liam Ronayne,
Library Association of Ireland, Ireland
Barbara Schleihagen, German Library
Association, Germany
Barbara Stratton, CILIP, UK
The
EBLIDA
Working Group
in
cooperation with
its
IFLA
colleagues
will continue to be pro-active in representing European library and archive
views to the European Commission and the WTO on the GATS negotiations.
Official Organisations and GATS
World Trade
Organization (WTO)
WTO GATS,
General Agreement on Trade in Services
WTO GATS Services
negotiations
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Positive Trade
Agenda Initiative
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Trade in
Services
UNESCO Universal Declaration on
Cultural Diversity (HTML)
(PDF), November 2001
European
European Commission
DG for Trade
DG Trade Info Point on World Trade in Services
DG Trade Civil Society Dialogue. Online forum on trade, global governance,
sustainable development
European Parliament Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and
Energy (ITRE)
European Parliament
Public Hearing on GATS: the future of services,
26 November 2002
Second European Conference of Regional Ministers for Culture and Education
on WTO and GATS, Brixen, 18 October 2002
UK DTI "Liberalising Trade in Services – a New Consultation", 10 October 2002
Service Organisations and GATS
European Services Forum (ESF)
United States Coalition of Service Industries
User Organisations and GATS
ATTAC: an international movement for democratic control of financial
markets and their institutions
Education International.
Trade in educational services
The
WTO and the Millennium Round - What is at stake for
Public Education? Common concerns for workers in education and the
public sector
European University Association (EUA). GATS and the implications for
higher education in Europe
GATSwatch.org - News and critical
information on the current WTO negotiations on the General Agreement on
Trade in Services (GATS) and the global campaign to stop the GATS attack
International Network for Cultural Diversity
People and Planet. UK student action. Education and GATS
World Development Movement. GATS campaign
Libraries and GATS
General
EBLIDA statement on libraries and trade in services, November 2002
EBLIDA
statement on libraries and trade in services (HTML)
EBLIDA
statement on libraries and trade in services (PDF)
EBLIDA press
release. The threat to publicly funded
services - libraries and the WTO, 19 November 2002
The
Brixen Declaration on Cultural Diversity and GATS, October 2002
(See paragraph 18 for libraries)
The
Brixen Declaration on Cultural Diversity and GATS (English)
The
Brixen Declaration on Cultural Diversity and GATS (French)
The
Brixen Declaration on Cultural Diversity and GATS (German)
The
Brixen Declaration on Cultural Diversity and GATS (Spanish)
The Commercialisation of
Libraries and Archives. Speech by Frode Bakken, AER conference, Brixen,
18 October 2002
Mackenzie, Jane (2002) The Quiet Storm, The Big Issue, Aug 12th-18th,
pp.10-11
Available on
Library Juice 5:27- August 22, 2002
GATS and libraries.
Assembly of European Regions, 2nd
European Conference of Regional Ministers of Culture and Education, 18 October 2002
(Background document)
Information for Social Change -
special issue on GATS (No. 14, Winter
2001-2002)
GATS and libraries. Updated links to articles about the impact of GATS on
libraries
Library associations
IFLA Position on WTO
Treaty Negotiations (2001)
WTO and libraries -
an introduction
by Frode Bakken (IFLA 2000)
Libraries and the WTO, Paul Whitney (IFLA 2000)
American Library Association (ALA)
WTO and GATS: the challenge to libraries,
May 2002
ALA Washington office. International copyright issues:
GATS, May 2002
Canadian library association
perspectives on WTO
meetings, November 1999
Canadian library association on
application to the WTO for NGO
accreditation, October 1999
GATS negotiations and its implications for public sector libraries,
Canadian Library Association's update (June 2004)
Trade in services: EU launches public consultation on requests for access to the EU market,
Brussels, 12 November 2002 (RAPID, IP/02/1652).
EC consultation on WTO members’ requests to the EC and
its Member States for improved market access to services (12 November
2002) and EBLIDA response
to EC consultation (January 2003)
Created: 22 April 2002
Last updated: 9 December 2005