The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) comprises several parts. The framework agreement and its Annexes contains the articles of the Agreement. Attached to the framework are the schedules of specific commitments and the lists of exemptions from MFN treatment that have been submitted by member governments.
The GATS Agreement requires each member to set out the commitments that it has undertaken in a schedule that specifies the
The schedules and the exemption lists are integral parts of the Agreement (Article XX of GATS). At the time of signature of the Marakesh Agreement in April 1994 - marking the conclusion of the Uruguay Round - 95 schedules of specific commitments in services and 61 lists of derogations from the MFN principle had been submitted and agreed. The only way to tell what services trade concessions a WTO member has made - and to what extent those concessions are affected by limits on national treatment or by temporary MFN exemptions - is by reference to a it"s GATS schedule, and (where relevant) its MFN exemption list.
The 95 schedules which were attached to the GATS in April 1994 cover 106 current and prospective WTO members. The European Union"s schedule covers its 12 member States as of that date (Austria, Finland and Sweden submitted schedules separately), and indicates specific commitments at the national level where applicable.
[back to top]The schedules are complex documents.
A specific commitment in a GATS schedule is an undertaking to provide market access and national treatment for the service activity in question on the terms and conditions specified in the schedule. When making a commitment a government binds the specified level of market access and national treatment and undertakes not to impose any new measures that would restrict entry into the market or the operation of the service. Specific commitments thus have an effect similar to a tariff binding - they are a guarantee to economic operators in other countries that the conditions of entry and operation in the market will not be changed to their disadvantage.
As in the case of GATT schedules, services commitments can only be withdrawn or modified after the agreement of compensatory adjustments with affected countries, and no withdrawals or modifications may be made until three years after entry into force of the Agreement. Such modifications of commitments may not affect the application of most-favoured-nation (MFN) treatment.
Commitments can however be added or improved at any time.
The national schedules all conform to a standard format which is intended to facilitate comparative analysis.
The commitments and limitations are in every case entered with respect to each of the four modes of supply which constitute the definition of trade in services in Article I of the GATS: these are cross-border supply; consumption abroad; commercial presence; and presence of natural persons (see above)
For each service sector or sub-sector that is offered, the schedule must indicate, with respect to each of the four modes of supply, any limitations on market access or national treatment which are to be maintained.
A commitment therefore consists of eight entries which indicate the presence or absence of market access or national treatment limitations with respect to each mode of supply. The first column in the standard format contains the sector or subsector that is the subject of the commitment; the second column contains limitations on market access; the third column contains limitations on national treatment. In the fourth column governments may enter any additional commitments which are not subject to scheduling under market access or national treatment.
In nearly all schedules, commitments are split into two sections: First, "horizontal" commitments which stipulate limitations that apply to all of the sectors included in the schedule; these often refer to a particular mode of supply, notably commercial presence and the presence of natural persons. Eighty-seven countries that submitted schedules in April 1994 indicated limitations to commitments that apply to all sectors in their schedule under "Horizontal commitments".
In the second section of the schedule, commitments which apply to trade in services in a particular sector or subsector are listed.