Published in:KU Leuven - Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, Working Paper ; No. 132, March 2014
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (66 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.2867385
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments March 10, 2014 erstellt
Description:
In this report, the inherent tension between regulatory autonomy and trade liberalisation is addressed with a focus on trade in services. Therefore, this report examines in detail what is meant by the term ‘(constraints on) regulatory autonomy' in trade law literature and develops five dimensions of the term: (i) endogenous and exogenous regulatory autonomy, (ii) regulatory autonomy related to the interest which a measure aims to advance, (iii) macro level constraints stemming from trade agreements, (iv) regulatory autonomy concerns resulting from the three steps of establishing a trade law violation, and (v) constraints related to the nature of the obligation. Subsequently, this report addresses how, in the case of the European Union, GATS' unconditional obligations constrain regulatory autonomy. Aside from the Most-Favoured-Nation obligation, we address a series of obligations related to transparency. Our preliminary conclusions reflect the partial nature of this report, but already highlight that these unconditional obligations contain a few possibly problematic constraints on regulatory autonomy