The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that entered into force in January 1995 as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading system to service sector, in the same way the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system for merchandise trade.
All members of the WTO are signatories to the GATS. The basic WTO principle of most favoured nation (MFN) applies to GATS as well. However, upon accession, Members may introduce temporary exemptions to this rule.
Read more about General Agreement On Trade In Services: Historical Background, Four Modes of Supply, Sectors Addressed, Criticisms
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“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
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—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)