Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 8 • 5th March 2002

Services: Domestic Regulation Discussed At OECD

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Convening for a 4-5 March Services Experts Meeting jointly organised by the Trade Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, OECD Members as well as some selected developing country WTO Members addressed the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) work programme on domestic regulation (GATS Article VI.4). Inter alia, participating countries convened to create intellectual input designed to feed into the current GATS negotiations at the WTO and to build bridges between trade negotiators, domestic regulators, national parliaments and civil society. While there was consensus among the participants that a great deal of attention needed to be paid to the developmental dimension of designing disciplines on domestic regulation, views on other subjects such as necessity, transparency and the choice of a generally horizontal approach remained diverse. This Experts Meeting was the third of its kind held as part of ongoing OECD work on trade in services.

With presentations from academia as well as the OECD, World Bank, WTO and UNCTAD secretariats, the discussions revolved around a number of horizontal rule-making issues prominently featured in the GATS Article VI.4 work programme, such as strengthening disciplines on transparency, international standardisation efforts, challenges arising from e- commerce, lessons learned from other WTO agreements, and the use of ‘necessity’ tests in domestic regulation. In the second part of the expert meeting, participants took a sectoral look at the interface between domestic regulation and services trade, notably in the areas of telecommunications, transport, financial services, accountancy, energy, and health services.

Despite their appreciation for the comprehensive analyses conducted by the presenters, some WTO Members remarked that academia needed a ‘reality check’ as the services talks at the WTO were far behind the state of analysis given in the presentations. The contributions had been "intellectually stimulating, but mostly too ambitious," an OECD member commented. Referring to paragraph 7 of the negotiation ‘guidelines’ requiring WTO Members to conclude negotiations on domestic regulation prior to the scheduled end of the new round of trade talks (1 January 2005), a developing country WTO delegate cautioned that, "within the remaining 33 months, [WTO Members] need to focus on what is feasible, desirable and realistic."

Addressing the composition of the participants invited to the experts meeting, another attendee commented that "in order to really address the concerns of all relevant stakeholders — including civil society groups — it would be positive if the OECD in its search for experts and participants could outreach to a more diverse set of constituencies."

On 14-15 March, the OECD Trade Committee Working Party will meet in order to organise the follow-up of the third Services Experts Meeting. This will include issuing a joint OECD-World Bank publication based on the meeting as well as identifying areas in which further analysis should be conducted. The publication by the OECD and the World Bank will be available to the public.

Developing country WTO Members attending the meeting were: Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela and Uruguay. Other international organisations present at the meeting included the WHO and the IMF.

The WTO convenes later this week for its ‘Services Week’ meetings, including the Committee on Specific Commitments and the Working Party on Domestic Regulation (see BRIDGES Weekly, 26 February 2002).

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