Talk:General Agreement on Trade in Services/Archives/2013

Information vs. Rabble-Rousing
Dear Anti-GATS Protestors: The purpose of this page is to provide information about the GATS, which is a legal instrument, or treaty, which national governments have signed, after years of negotiation, discussion and debate between themselves. There is a huge movement to protest the GATS by non-experts. If you guys want to make a page about anti-GATS literature, then make it in Wikipedia, but don't confuse the facts and legal information with rumor and hearsay. Please. RTV-Right to Vanish

I noticed someone took out the external link to gatswatch.org, so I'm putting it back in. It seems to me that since the article has a section on criticism, an external link to a site with information on criticisms of GATS is appropriate. Hegar 18:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Section on criticism moved to Discussion --RTV-Right to Vanish 08:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC) --- If someone does not like something - He should not remove that from here.

''Thing get removed from Wikipedia pages all the time. Nature of the beast. --RTV-Right to Vanish 08:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)''

Good article Hegar -added a little paragraph on the critique of GATS -tell me what you think about it! Cookydog.

''Removed. --RTV-Right to Vanish 08:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)''

Four Modes of Supply
This section links to another article, Four Modes of Supply, which looks pretty much like a direct copy of the information presented in this article. The Four Modes of Supply article then links to itself, as it's pretty much a copy of the section. Would it be appropriate to have Four Modes of Supply simply redirect to General Agreement on Trade in Services instead of having two articles to upkeep? Atreys 03:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism by Non-Experts
The GATS document has been criticized, by non-experts, for:
 * Encouraging the privatisation of public services like health-care, education, postal and water services
 * Undermining the authority of national legislatures and national authority more generally.

(response to this unsigned statement above): Neither assertion is true. GATS neither requires that services be privatized, nor does it undermine national legislature. The GATS, being part of the WTO, was negotiated by national governments, agreed upon by national governments, signed by national governments, and after that point, each national government which was a WTO Member was expected to ratify the WTO agreements, of which GATS is part. --RTV-Right to Vanish 07:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

GATS and National Sovereignty
Another misunderstanding is that GATS undermines sovereignty. Many civil society organizations fear the GATS, not realizing that national governments have negotiated, signed, and ratified the WTO Agreements, of which the GATS is part. The below entry is an example of such a misunderstanding. --RTV-Right to Vanish 07:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

''The GATS has been criticised by civil society groups for udermining the sovereignty of elected governments by disallowing their regulation of their own economies. According to Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, "Essentially, the GATS is mandated to restrict government actions in regards to services through a set of legally binding constraints backed up by WTO-enforced trade sanctions. Its most fundamental purpose is to constrain all levels of government . . . and to facilitate access to government contracts by transnational corporations in a multitude of areas, including public health and education." ''

GATS and Privatisation
Many non-experts claim that the GATS requires that WTO Members privatize their services sectors. There is no basis in truth for this, in the GATS legal text. The below statement is an example of such assertions.

''The GATS requires WTO member states to gradually open the services sectors of their economies to privatization and ownership and provision by multinational corporations. This element of the GATS has been criticised because many of these services -like education, health-care, water and postal services - are currently supplied by governments, which mostly guarantee a basic level of service for all citizens. There is concern that if essential services are privatized under the GATS, citizens will be required to more pay for previously free or low-cost services, and requirements... (unsigned)'' ''

RTV-Right to Vanish This was written by a non-expert. GATS does not require opening services to privatization, nor does it mention multinationals. Please confine such writings to the discussion page, where they belong. (moved)''

Confusion among non-experts
Confusion exists among non-experts about what it means to adhere to an international treaty For example, a WTO Dispute Resolution Panel on the Cross-border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services in 2004 ruled that "Members' regulatory sovereignty is an essential pillar of the progressive liberalisation of trade in services, but this sovereignty ends whenever rights of other Members under the GATS are impaired." 

''To the unsigned person who wrote the section "Confusion among non-experts": It might ameliorate some of the confusion if you pointed out that the treaty to which adherence is required was negotiated, agreed upon, signed, and ratified by the national governments in question. This is the largest misunderstanding, in my experience. Non-experts tend to fear that unaffiliated third parties are foisting rules on them. Which is a misunderstanding. The field of international law isn't in the common system of education. When and if it comes to be so, there will be fewer such misunderstandings.'' --RTV-Right to Vanish 07:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Reference to Document MTN.GNS/W/124 is mistaken
In this title : General Agreement on Trade in Services, at the table explaing four modes of supply of services, reference is made to document no. MTN.GNS/W/124. I searched for that document from WTO document's database and found that this document is entitled "Communication from China - Conditional Offer of the People's Republic of China Concerning Initial Commitments" and has nothing to do with the explanation written in that table. I am new to Wikipedia and do not know how to correct this. Besides, the explanation of four modes citing the said document looks rather confusing to me. As one of the people who has a chance to sit in the negotiating room to draft the Agreement on Trade in Services during the Uruguay round, I thought there shoud be a better way to explain this particular subject.--- Boonyarit (Thailand)

Multilateral Agreement on Investment as a "precursor" to the GATS
I have removed the claim that the MAI, for which negotiations failed in 1998, was a precusor to the GATS, in which they succeeded in 1994. I have also removed the "see also" link to the MAI, since there is already a link in the body of the text. It seems misleading to me to have a link to the MAI, but not the GATT, since, while the MAI is somewhat related to the GATS (a WTO treaty etc.), it is clearly no where nearly as closely related as the treaty that was the model for the GATS. Many academic articles on the GATS do not mention the MAI, whereas very, very few avoid mentioning the GATT. Finally, since most discussion of the MAI is speculative, as there was no finalised text, learning about the MAI will rarely shed clear light on the GATS itself. The link in the article is appropriate, but the repetition seems likely to reflect a link that exists only in so much as both GATS and the MAI are agreements that make activists mad. Jamesofengland 00:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)