Are there differences in the way that services are treated in trade agreements at the multilateral and regional levels?
At the multilateral level, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) contains rules and disciplines for services trade that were negotiated for the first time during the Uruguay Round and that have been in effect since January 1995. At the regional level, many trade agreements have been negotiated that cover trade in services. In the Western Hemisphere, no less than 18 regional agreements on services have been concluded, subsequent to the NAFTA which came into effect in January 1994. Nearly all of the regional agreements in the Hemisphere take a more far-reaching or comprehensive approach to services trade liberalization, under which all service sectors fall within the scope of the disciplines of the agreement, not just those that the government chooses to include, as in the WTO. Under this approach, often termed negative list, governments also agree to remove all measures that discriminate against foreign service providers, unless they make reservations to this requirement for
