News and Analysis • Volume 10 • Number 6 • September 2006
The EMS Debate at the WTO
WTO discussions are based on the mandate in GATS Article X.1 that “there shall be negotiations on the question of emergency safeguard measures based on the principle of non-discrimination.” The results of such negotiations were to enter into force no later than 1 January 1998.
After several deadlines for concluding the EMS negotiations had been missed, the Council for Trade in Services effectively made them part of the Doha Round by deciding on15 March 2004 that their results would enter into effect “on a date not later than the date of entry into force of the results of the current round of services negotiations.”
The issue has been on the agenda of the Working Party on GATS Rules since its establishment in March 1995, and it has been the item that the group has devoted by far the most time to. Many informal meetings have also taken place, and Members have tabled an impressive number of substantive submissions.
Nevertheless, neither the extensive documentation nor the heated discussions have succeeded in narrowing differences between those who question the need for, and the feasibility of, an Emergency Safeguard Mechanism and those who have conditioned their acceptance of any market access package in services on an EMS being in place. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been particularly active advocates for an ESM, which they have termed as an ‘essential safety net for services liberalisation.’ The US, the EU and Australia are among the greatest skeptics.
Lately, the EMS talks – like those on most other outstanding rule-making issues – have been largely dormant as attention has focused on bilateral and plurilateral negotiations on market access.