Revitalising the WTO services negotiations through development-friendly complementary approaches

The current status of the services negotiations is unsatisfactory to several stakeholders. NGOs (including in London) are once again focusing on GATS and new impetus into the negotiations seems required. Amongst others, this may include complementary services negotiation procedures to make proposals more ambitious, and complementary instruments to make negotiating easier for developing countries and outcomes more acceptable.

This project seeks to identify and assess complementary instruments and as well as assess current request/offer procedures which may include issues such as flexibility, secrecy, limited progress, scope, and SDT. It will also look at how complementary negotiating procedures address the shortcomings of the current approach and will look at balancing the ambition of alternative methods with their effects on developing country exports of services and negotiation capacity.