Author(s): Jane Kelsey

Politics

Serving Whose Interests? explores the political economy of trade in services agreements from a critical legal perspective. The controversy surrounding the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and its variants at the regional and bilateral levels can, it is argued, be seen as a clash between two paradigms.

For most of the 20th century, under welfare states and state socialism, these services were viewed from a local and national perspective as embodying a mix of economic, social and cultural dimensions and were managed by the state through strong regulation and direct ownership and delivery. That socially based and state-centred approach has been progressively displaced since the 1980s through neoliberal policies of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation, the transnationalisation of finance and production, and new technologies.

The internationalisation of services markets has thus become a driver of contemporary capitalism. The explicit aim of 'trade in services' agreements is to lock in national regulations and policies that enhance the profitability of international services markets.