- 期刊
The Proposed Non-MFN Plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement: Another Act of WTO Implosion
非最惠國待遇之複邊服務貿易協定提案：世界貿易組織的另一次內爆行為
摘要
被視為有效的全球貿易自由化團體的世界貿易組織（WTO）正遭遇大麻煩，而其問題的來源不是外在而是內在。會員國，尤其是國際貿易的主要大國或大區塊如美國與歐洲聯盟（EU）難辭其咎。當世貿組織需要強而有力的多邊領導與支持時，這些強權們卻口是心非，說的是一回事，而做的卻是一些對WTO運作有害的舉動。WTO的從內部崩解將會持續，除非會員國中止他們不尊重與不履行該組織核心原則，尤其是最惠國待遇（MFN），這是WTO的最主要的比較利益，WTO也是唯一能維護此一根本價值的機構。堅持維護WTO的MFN原則不僅確保該組織的運作，並且存在的有意義。如果複邊談判（plurilateral negotiations）不幸被默認為巴里後模式（post-Bali way），也應該是與WTO的這些原則一致，且必須是在WTO內以透明的「關鍵多數決」（criticalmass）門檻來確保所有會員國的最惠國待遇。
並列摘要
The WTO as an effective global trade liberalization body is in deep trouble, and the causes are from within not outside. Members, especially the key players in international trade like the US and EU, are squarely to blame. At a time when strong multilateral leadership and support for the WTO is needed, these hegemony economies are preaching one thing but adopting actions that are at the heart of the WTO's demise. The WTO's implosion will continue unless Members stop driving it into the ground by not respecting and implementing its core principles, especially of most-favoured-nation, the WTO's main comparative advantage; it is the only institution capable of defending this fundamental value. Preserving a strong MFN principle is essential to ensuring the WTO not only survives operationally, but remains worthwhile. If plurilateral negotiations are unfortunately by default to be the post-Bali way, they ought to be as consistent as possible with these WTO principles, and be negotiated within the WTO using transparent critical mass' thresholds to ensure MFN treatment for all Members. Plurilaterals 'aren't just plurilaterals' and have their own problems, especially if negotiated discriminatorily outside the WTO. The WTO has plenty of scope to negotiate 'MFN plurilaterals' in services, for instance, by using protocols and understandings in the General Agreement on Services (GATS) e.g. the 4^(th) and 5^(th) protocols that incorporated the results of the extended negotiations on basic telecommunications and financial services, respectively, into participants' GATS schedules. The form the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) is taking and what is being negotiated will have significant ramifications not only for services liberalization generally, but for the WTO's future relevance and possible survival as an effective institution to advance open global trade. The non-MFN pathway along which TiSA negotiations are proceeding raises many uncertainties that risk further harming the WTO as the defender of the multilateral non-discriminatory trading system, at a time when the institution and multilateralism are in deep trouble and much in need of revival. The tepid Bali outcomes after 12 years of tortuous negotiations highlight the extent of the distress. It is very doubtful whether TiSA's negotiation as being executed is in the interests of global trade or of the WTO. The TiSA approach to establish a discriminatory PTA to end the WTO’s impasse is gobbledygook, and should be avoided. Negotiating TiSA as a plurilateral non-MFN PTA in Geneva under GATS Article V outside the WTO and possibly competing with the GATS, to be somehow but without guarantee multilateralized, to advance multilateral services negotiations risks backfiring badly. It is an exemplar of why PTAs and associated regionalism are best avoided, both for their own weaknesses, but also because they are contributing to the demise of the multilateral trading system. PTAs do not address the domestic political economy pressures opposing liberalization, even possibly inflaming them; exacerbate the flawed mercantilist thinking and 'free rider' problem used to resist self-liberalization; and distract from what really matters, namely home-based reforms through unilateralism built on domestic transparency to expose the economic costs of protection and to ensure trade policies are publicly scrutinized so as to keep governments accountable in looking after the national rather than vested interests. Despite stated intentions to multilateralize TiSA based on some 'critical mass' coverage of participants, this remains uncertain. To help achieve this outcome the threshold should be set as low as possible. However, the odds-on favourite emerging is that once implemented as a PTA it will remain so into the foreseeable future. This would be another nail (probably a bolt) into the WTO's coffin. It TiSA is to be negotiated it is essential to ensure it only operates as a MFN plurilateral agreement within the WTO. The compounded fear is that TiSA, especially when combined with the TPP, RCEP, and the TTIP, will become the tipping point beyond which Members justify ignoring WTO norms because no one else follows them (Baldwin and Carpenter, 2009). Such an outcome would be bad for all WTO Members and for global trade governance generally.
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