Book Launch: Gabriel Gari, Rules for Trade in Services 2.0

The Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London was delighted to host a book launch for Rules for Trade in Services 2.0 Adapting the GATS to a Changing Trade Landscape (Routledge, 2024), written by Gabriel Gari, former Reader in International Economic Law at this institution.

The book explores the adaptation process of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to a constantly changing trade and policy context. Back in 1994, the adoption of the GATS, a multilateral agreement with stand-alone rules and principles for the governance of trade and investment in services, represented a watershed in the history of global trade governance. Three decades after the adoption of the Agreement, WTO Members struggle to deliver on the GATS’ mandate to achieve progressively higher levels of trade liberalisation in a radically different trade and policy landscape.

Digital technologies have transformed the way we trade, what we trade, and who trades like never before. The rising number of Preferential Services Agreements contest the role of the GATS and the WTO as the centre of gravity for the governance of trade in services. The rise of China to the centre stage of world trade has altered the balance of power underpinning the multilateral trading system. Pressing environmental challenges and national security concerns are making it increasingly difficult to reconcile free trade with non-trade policy concerns. In years to come, additive manufacturing, the internet of things, distributed ledger technology, and artificial intelligence will continue to reduce trade costs, blurring the distinction between goods and services and raising the relevance of data flows and intellectual property.

Against this background, this book examines the contribution of the WTO negotiating, adjudicative, and deliberative functions to adapting the GATS to changing trade and policy circumstances. The book uncovers an extremely flexible and adaptable agreement whose full potential has yet to be realised due to a complex set of non-service specific factors. The book distils the factors at play that constrain WTO Members’ capacity to adapt the Agreement to changing circumstances and explores potential pathways to overcome them.

The author presented an overview of the book followed by reactions from four discussants in a thought-provoking discussion about the future of the GATS in a fast changing trade and policy landscape.

Author

Gabriel Gari is an advisory lawyer working for the UK Government Legal Department on trade in services matters. Prior to this position, Gabriel was Reader in International Economic Law at Queen Mary, University of London. As an academic, Gabriel has researched and published extensively on his area of expertise including his monograph Rules for Trade in Services 2.0 Adapting the GATS to a Changing Trade Landscape (Routledge, 2024). Gabriel holds a PhD from Queen Mary University of London, an LLM from the London School of Economics and degrees in law and in sociology from the Universidad de la República del Uruguay.

Chair

The event was chaired by Dr Tibisay Morgandi Senior Lecturer in International Energy and Natural Resources Law and Director of the International Economic Law Clinic (TradeLab) at Queen Mary University of London, School of Law (Centre for Commercial Law Studies)

Discussants

Ines Willemyns, Teaching Fellow for the International Economic Law, Business and Policy (IELBP) LL.M program and Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School

Panos Delimatsis, Professor, Tilburg University

Hamid Mamdouh, Senior Counsel at King & Spalding LLP and former Director of the Trade in Services and Investment Division of the WTO

Justine Rodier, (TBC)  Deputy Director – Services and Investment, Department for Business and Trade Legal Advisers, Government Legal Department.