Trade Agreements and Legal Services: An Anatomy of the GATS and Preferential Trade Arrangements

Abstract

There is little doubt that the past two decades have seen an extraordinary advance in the globalization of the world's economies. In this context, the legal services play a crucial role in facilitating business and form a vital part of the infrastructure that underpins world commerce. As a result, this service sector has experienced continuous growth over the last ten years. However, the regulation of legal services in most jurisdictions did not follow the same evolution, which results in restrictions on cross-border legal practice. Yet economic growth and globalization of economies increasingly require the adaptation of the regulation of legal services. In most instances they take place in the context of trade agreements. Until recently to the exception of the EU and the NAFTA, the liberalization of trade in services took place within the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). However, the last decade has seen a proliferation of Preferential Trade Agreement (PTAs), which contain liberalization of trade services, including legal services. Such evolution leads to the coexistence of the GATS and the PTAs. The objective of this article is to analyse the interaction of these agreements in the context of the liberalization of trade in legal services using four principles of trade liberalization: the transparency; the nondiscrimination; the avoidance of unnecessary restrictions; the recognition.