Facilitating Services Trade Through the Adoption of Good Regulatory Practices: The New Reference Paper on Services Domestic Regulation

Abstract

The agreement by sixty-nine WTO Members on a set of disciplines on the transparency, predictability, and efficiency of services regulation - otherwise known as the ‘Reference Paper on Services Domestic Regulation’ - marks the first negotiated outcome in the field of services trade since the extended negotiations on basic telecommunications and financial services in 1997. The outcome illustrates, on the one hand, the challenge of arriving at multilaterally agreed results in the WTO even for substantively non-controversial issues. On the other hand, it is testament to the ability of large groups of like-minded WTO Members to cooperate and deliver without political linkages with other negotiating issues. This contribution aims to provide an overview of the evolution of negotiations on domestic regulation at the WTO, and elaborates on how the main features of the new Reference Paper complement and build upon regulatory disciplines contained in the GATS. While not yet legally into force, recent evidence suggests that the new Reference Paper will become a standard building block for future economic cooperation agreements and its implementation is expected to generate broad economic benefits. services domestic regulation, WTO, Joint Initiative, preferential trade agreements, economic benefits, good regulatory practices