The interpretation of gats disciplines on economic integration : GATS commitments as a threshold?

Abstract

The interpretation of GATS Article I which deals with economic integration, is of crucial importance to the growing number of economic integration agreements (El As) in services, in terms of dispute settlement, services negotiations, the WTO review of EIAs, the coordination between multilateralism and EIAs, and best practices in drawing up EIAs. However, the Article has received insufficient study and remains vague. This paper takes China's eight EIAs as test cases for interpreting CATS Article V and argues that CATS commitments may be an appropriate threshold for interpreting the Article, in particular the substantial sectoral coverage and elimination of discrimination requirements, which are probably among the major challenges.