Commentary of GATS Article IX : Business Practices

Commentary of Article IX of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) on business practices, including a textual analysis of the provision, as well as an examination of the pertinent WTO case law and of other related international and regional rules and practices.

GATS and the Social Regulation of Services. IES WORKING PAPER 3/2010

Many service transactions are highly complex, and their quality is difficult to ascertain for consumers. In order to have properly functioning service markets, the services thus often require regulation. However, with the advent of the WTO, international trade in services has become increasingly rule-bound. GATS has considerable, intricate effects on social regulation due to the characteristics of services. The allocation of regulatory jurisdiction between home and host country, for example, is rendered difficult by the process-based nature of a lot of services. The WTO US – Gambling dispute settlement report is the first to address GATS disciplines on social regulation in a detailed manner. This working paper submits that the US - Gambling report has increased interference with domestic social regulation and created regulatory uncertainty for WTO members. However, it is also argued that the real impact of the GATS on social regulation can only be understood by looking beyond the text of the GATS. GATS disciplines may become amplified through their interaction with domestic and other international law. The GATS also contains some “political” counterbalancing mechanisms that allow members to renegotiate their commitments. It is argued that these political mechanisms strengthen subsidiarity in the GATS, and make WTO dispute settlement bodies accountable to WTO members.

Sino-African State Trading in Services: Added-Value through Angola-Model loaning, GATS commitments or FTAs?

Paper presented by Charlotte Sieber-Gasser at the 5th Annual TRAPCA Conference, Arusha (Tanzania), 25-26 November 2010. Despite the increasing volume of trade between China and African countries, not one single conventional free trade agreement (FTA) or economic partnership agreement (EPA) has yet been signed between an African country and China. Initially, Sino-African trade relations were to a very large extent centred on investments secured through bilateral investment agreements (BITs). The more recent Chinese investments on the African continent, however, are more informally based on FDI contracts with the state at the receiving end and a government-owned private company as the investor, or loosely attached to loans commonly known under term ‘the Angola-Model’. This rather unusual basis for economic integration and development assistance, outside the trodden path of free trade agreements and ODA, requires further analysis in order to understand how the current legal framework between China and the African continent impacts economic development and national sovereignty, and what kind of distributive consequences it may have.

Macrophages in regressed and progressed uveal melanoma

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary ocular malignancy in adults. In Finland, approximately 50 new cases are diagnosed yearly. Up to 50% of UM metastasize, mostly to the liver, although other organs are also affected. Despite improvements in the management of the primary tumour, the survival rates of patients with metastatic UM are poor. Until the 1970s, UMs were treated by enucleation i.e. removal of the eye. Currently, UM is usually treated by brachytherapy, which is known to influence tumour cells and blood vessels. UMs enucleated both primarily and secondarily after brachytherapy contain tumour-infiltrating macrophages, and a high number of macrophages in primary UM is associated with a shorter survival and a higher microvascular density (MVD) within the tumour tissue. The latter is independently associated with a shorter time to metastatic death. Macrophages have several diverse roles depending on their response to variable signals from the surrounding microenvironment. They function as scavengers, as producers of angiogenic and growth factors as well as proteases, which modulate extracellular matrix. Thus, tumour invasiveness and the risk for metastasis increase with increasing macrophage density. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of regression and progression of UM on macrophage numbers and microcirculation factors. Tumour regression is induced by primary brachytherapy, and tumour progression is evidenced by the development of metastases. Understanding the biological behaviour of UMs in the both states may help us in finding new treatment modalities against this disease. To achieve these aims case-control analyses of irradiated UMs and primarily-enucleated eyes (34 matched pairs) were performed. UMs were stained immunohistochemically to detect macrophages, extravascular matrix (EVM) loops and networks, and MVD. Following brachytherapy, a lower MVD was observed. The average number of macrophages remained unchanged. Considering that irradiated melanomas may still contain proliferating tumour cells, a clinically-relevant consequence of my study would be the reassurance that the risk for metastasis is likely to be reduced, given that the low MVD in untreated UMs indicates a favourable prognosis. The effect of progression on macrophages was studied in a paired analysis of primarily-enucleated UM and their corresponding hepatic metastases (48 pairs). A cross-sectional histopathological analysis of these pairs was carried out by staining both specimens in a similar way to the first study. MVD was greater in hepatic metastases than in corresponding primary tumours, and the survival of the patient tended to be shorter if hepatic metastases had a higher MVD. Hepatic metastases had also more dendritic macrophages than the primary UMs. Thus, the progression to metastasis seems to alter the inflammatory status within the tumour. Furthermore, determining MVD of biopsied hepatic metastases may serve as a supplementary tool in estimating the prognosis of patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. After irradiation, the majority of treated eyes have been clinically observed to have pigmented episcleral deposits. A noncomparative clinical case series of 211 irradiated UM eyes were studied by recording the number and location of pigmented episcleral deposits during follow-up visits after brachytherapy. For the first time, the study described pigmented episcleral deposits, which are found in the most UM eyes after brachytherapy, and proved them to consist of macrophages full with engulfed melanin particles. This knowledge may save patients from unnecessary enucleation, because episcleral pigmented deposits might be mistaken for extrascleral tumour growth. The presence of pigmented macrophage-related episcleral deposits was associated with plaque size and isotope rather than with tumour size, suggesting that, in addition to tumour regression, radiation atrophy of retinal pigment epithelium and choroid contributes to the formation of the deposits. In the paired (the same 34 pairs as in the first study) cross-sectional study of irradiated and non-irradiated UMs, clinically-visible episcleral deposits and migrating macrophages in other extratumoral tissues were studied histopathologically. Resident macrophages were present in extratumoral tissues in eyes with both irradiated and non-irradiated UM. Irradiation increased both the number of CD68+ macrophages in the sclera beneath the tumour and the number of clinically-observed episcleral macrophages aggregates. Brachytherapy seemed to alter the route of migration of macrophages: after irradiation, macrophages migrated preferentially through the sclera while in non-irradiated UMs they seemed to migrate more along the choroid. In order to understand the influence of these routes on tumour progression and regression in the future, labelling and tracking of activated macrophages in vivo is required.

Up-regulation of GABA transporters and GABAA Receptor α1 subunit in tremor rat hippocampus

The loss of GABAergic neurotransmission has been closely linked with epileptogenesis. The modulation of the synaptic activity occurs both via the removal of GABA from the synaptic cleft and by GABA transporters (GATs) and by modulation of GABA receptors. The tremor rat (TRM; tm/tm) is the parent strain of the spontaneously epileptic rat (SER; zi/zi, tm/tm), which exhibits absence-like seizure after 8 weeks of age. However, there are no reports that can elucidate the effects of GATs and GABAA receptors (GABARs) on TRMs. The present study was conducted to detect GATs and GABAR a1 subunit in TRMs hippocampus at mRNA and protein levels. In this study, total synaptosomal GABA content was significantly decreased in TRMs hippocampus compared with control Wistar rats by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC); mRNA and protein expressions of GAT-1, GAT-3 and GABAR a1 subunit were all significantly increased in TRMs hippocampus by real time PCR and western blot, respectively; GAT-1 and GABAR a1 subunit proteins were localized widely in TRMs and control rats hippocampus including CA1, CA3 and dentate gyrus (DG) regions whereas only a wide distribution of GAT-3 was observed in CA1 region by immunohistochemistry. These data demonstrate that excessive expressions of GAT-1 as well as GAT-3 and GABAR a1 subunit in TRMs hippocampus may provide the potential therapeutic targets for genetic epilepsy.

The International Regulatory Regime on Capital Flows

Capital controls and exchange restrictions are used to restrict international capital flows during economic crises. This paper looks at the legal implications of these restrictions and explores the current international regulatory framework applicable to international capital movements and current payments. It shows how international capital flows suffer from the lack of a comprehensive and coherent regulatory framework that would harmonize the patchwork of
multilateral, regional, and bilateral treaties that currently regulate this issue. These treaties include the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF Articles), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), free-trade agreements, the European Union treaty, bilateral investment treaties, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Code of Liberalization of Capital Movements (OECD Code of Capital Movement). Each
of these instruments regulate differently capital movements with little coordination with other areas of law. This situation sometimes leads to regulatory overlaps and conflict between different sources of law. Given the strong links between capital movements and trade in services, this paper pays particular attention to the rules of the GATS on capital flows and discusses the policy space available in the GATS for restricting capital flows in times of crisis.

Regime-Interaktionen

Die Entstehung eines globalen Arbeitsmarktes ist in den letzten Jahren ins öffentliche Bewußtsein gerückt. Die vorliegende Arbeit zeigt, dass ein solcher Markt nicht von alleine entsteht, sondern eines komplexen institutionellen Arrangments auf internationaler Ebene bedarf. Mit ihrem Fokus steht die Arbeit im Kontext einer globalen Arbeitsmarktforschung, die über einen Ländervergleich hinausgeht, um die internationalen Regulierungen in den Blick zu nehmen. Viele der bisherigen Arbeiten in diesem Bereich konzentrieren sich vorallem auf die Welthandelsorganisation, genauer auf das Allgemeine Dienstleistungsabkommen (GATS), das Vorgaben zur Personenfreizügigkeit macht. Diese Forschung hat bislang jedoch die bildungspolitische Dimension des globalen Arbeitsmarktes vernachlässigt. Besonders bei hochqualifizierten Tätigkeiten, die einen nicht unwichtigen Teil des globalen Dienstleistungshandels ausmachen, ist diese Dimension von Bedeutung. Individuelle Dienstleistungsanbieter sind darauf angewiesen, dass ihre Qualifikationen in den Ländern anerkannt werden, in denen sie tätig werden wollen. Das GATS definiert jedoch keine substantiellen Qualifikationsstandards und die Versuche, im Rahmen des GATS Auflagen zu sektorübergreifenden Anerkennungsstandards zu machen, sind bislang gescheitert. Im Gegensatz hierzu sind in den letzten Jahren im Rahmen der Organisation der Vereinten Nationen für Erziehung, Wissenschaft und Kultur (UNESCO) Standards zur Anerkennung von Hochschulbildung maßgeblich weiterentwickelt und konkretisiert worden. Zunächst bezog sich diese Entwicklung auf Europa als Teil eines umfassenderen Prozesses, der als Bologna-Prozess bekannt wurde. Doch auch in anderen Regionen ist die Konkretisierung und Weiterentwicklung der UNESCO-Anerkennungsstandards auf die bildungspolitische Tagesordnung gerückt. Die vorliegende Fallstudie rekonstruiert die Entwicklung dieser Standards, die einen Vergleich sehr unterschiedlicher Qualifikationen ermöglichen sollen. Die Studie wirft so ein Schlaglicht auf ein komplexes multiskalares institutionelles Arrangement, das die Anerkennung von Qualifikationen erleichtert, und verdeutlicht eine Interdependenz zwischen dem GATS und der UNESCO. Diese institutionelle Interdependenz verweist auf eine neue Komplexität internationaler Politik. Zusammen mit einem globalen Arbeitsmarkt, globalen Produktionsketten und Kommunikationsnetzwerken ist sie Ausdruck eines sich transnationalisierenden Vergesellschaftungsprozesses, den es auch in der theoretischen Konzeption internationaler Politik zu berücksichtigen gilt. Auch hierzu will die vorliegende Arbeit aus einer neo-gramscianischen, neo-Poulantza'schen Perspektive einen Beitrag leisten.