Publication: Telecommunications and the World Trade Organization : The Case of Mexico
Loading...
Date
2005-11
ISSN
Published
2005-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The U.S.-Mexico case (2002-04) was the first (and so far only) case of World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute resolution on telecommunications services and the first on services only. The findings of the Panel charged with settling the dispute contain interpretations of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), especially its Annex on Telecommunications and the Reference Paper that sets regulatory principles. Although these interpretations strictly apply only to the case examined, they have implications for other countries and sectors and beyond trade law. The following are some of the findings. Telecommunications services originated in one country and terminated in another country are cross-border services under the GATS irrespective of whether the same service provider is present in both countries. The accounting rate regime, whereby operators share revenue from international services provided jointly, is subject to the discipline of cost-based interconnection for countries that have adopted the Reference Paper. Uniform settlement rates and proportional return are anticompetitive practices under the Reference Paper even when they are mandated by law. The lack of implementing regulations does not excuse the country from meeting its commitments under the GATS. Mexico and the United States, although not in full agreement with the Panel, did not appeal. An agreed plan to address the underlying legal and regulatory issues was successfully implemented in July 2005.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Wellenius, Björn; Galarza, Juan; Guermazi, Boutheina. 2005. Telecommunications and the World Trade Organization : The Case of Mexico. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 3759. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/8479 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Geopolitics and the World Trading System(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-23)Until the beginning of this century, the GATT/WTO system worked. Economic research provided a compelling explanation. It showed that if governments maximize the well-being of their own countries broadly defined, GATT/WTO principles would facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation over their trade policy choices. Now heightened geopolitical rivalry seems to have undermined the WTO. A simple transposition of the previous rationalization suggests that geopolitics and trade cooperation are not compatible. The paper shows that this is only true if rivalry eclipses any consideration of own-country well-being. In all other circumstances, there are gains from trade cooperation even with geopolitics. Furthermore, the WTO’s relevance is in question only if it adheres too rigidly to its existing rules and norms. Through measured adaptation to the geopolitical imperative, the WTO can continue to thrive as a forum for multilateral trade cooperation in the age of geopolitics.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication From Patriarchy to Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Legal institutions play an important role in shaping gender equality in economic domains, from inheritance to labor markets. But where do gender equal laws come from? Using cross-country data on social norms and legal equality, this paper investigates the socio-cultural roots of gender inequity in the legal system and its implications for female labor force participation. To identify the impact of social norms, the analysis uses an empirical strategy that exploits pre-modern differences in ancestral patriarchal culture as an instrument for present-day gender norms. The findings show that ancestral patriarchal culture is a strong predictor of contemporary norms, and conservative social norms are associated with more gender inequality in the de jure legal framework, the de facto implementation of laws, and the labor market. The paper presents evidence for a political selection mechanism linking norms to laws: countries with more conservative norms elect political leaders who are more hostile to gender equality, who then pass less progressive legislation. The results highlight the cultural roots and political drivers of legalized gender inequality.Publication Global Socio-economic Resilience to Natural Disasters(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-22)Most disaster risk assessments use damages to physical assets as their central metric, often neglecting distributional impacts and the coping and recovery capacity of affected people. To address this shortcoming, the concepts of well-being losses and socio-economic resilience—the ability to experience asset losses without a decline in well-being—have been proposed. This paper uses microsimulations to produce a global estimate of well-being losses from, and socio-economic resilience to, natural disasters, covering 132 countries. On average, each $1 in disaster-related asset losses results in well-being losses equivalent to a $2 uniform national drop in consumption, with significant variation within and across countries. The poorest income quintile within each country incurs only 9% of national asset losses but accounts for 33% of well-being losses. Compared to high-income countries, low-income countries experience 67% greater well-being losses per dollar of asset losses and require 56% more time to recover. Socio-economic resilience is uncorrelated with exposure or vulnerability to natural hazards. However, a 10 percent increase in GDP per capita is associated with a 0.9 percentage point gain in resilience, but this benefit arises indirectly—such as through higher rate of formal employment, better financial inclusion, and broader social protection coverage—rather than from higher income itself. This paper assess ten policy options and finds that socio-economic and financial interventions (such as insurance and social protection) can effectively complement asset-focused measures (e.g., construction standards) and that interventions targeting low-income populations usually have higher returns in terms of avoided well-being losses per dollar invested.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Shaping Future GATS Rules for Trade in Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-04)The new round of negotiations has begun with a mechanical sense of "since we said we would, therefore we must," says the author. To make the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) more effective ay liberalization, the author suggests improving the agreement's rules, countries' specific commitments, and the negotiating methodology: 1) Wasteful regulations, and entry restrictions pervade trade in services. Unlike the GATT, the GATS has created no hierarchy of instruments of protection. It may be possible to create a legal presumption in favor of instruments (such as fiscal measures) that provide protection more efficiently. 2) Many countries have taken advantage of the GATS to create a more secure trading environment, by making legally binding commitments to market access. The credibility of reform would increase with wider commitments to maintain current levels of openness, or to increase access in the future. 3) Multilateral rules on domestic regulations can help promote, and consolidate domestic regulatory reform, even when the rules are designed primarily to prevent the erosion of market access for foreign providers. The pro-competitive principles developed for basic communications, could be extended to other network-based services sectors, such as transport (terminals and infrastructure), and energy services (distribution networks). The "necessity test" instituted for accounting services, could be applied to instruments in other sectors (so that doctors judged competent in one jurisdiction, wouldn't have to be retrained for another, for example). 4) Anticompetitive practices that fall outside the jurisdiction of national competition law, may be important in such sectors as maritime, air transport, and communications services. Strengthened multilateral rules are needed to reassure small countries with weak enforcement capacity, that the gains from liberalization will not be appropriated by international cartels. 5) Explicit departures from the most-favored-nation rule matter most in such sectors as maritime transport, audiovisual services, and air transport services - which have been excluded from key GATS disciplines. Implicit discrimination can be prevented by developing rules to ensure the non-discriminatory allocation of quotas, and maintaining the desirable openness of the GATS provision on mutual recognition agreements. 6) Reciprocity must play a greater role in negotiations, if the GATS is to advance liberalization beyond measures taken independently.Publication Deeper Integration and Trade in Services in the Euro-Mediterranean Region : Southern Dimensions of the European Neighborhood Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005)Deeper economic integration with the enlarged European Union - which accounts for a quarter of global GDP and foreign direct investment - could become a main driver for economic development in the southern Mediterranean countries. The planned Euro-Mediterranean free trade area for goods is a first step into that direction, but additional measures are needed. Especially the liberalization of services trade and the comprehensive domestic reforms this entails would strengthen the linkages with global and European markets. This study analyzes the adjustment needs and policy options associated with deeper integration between the two sides of the Mediterranean Sea. It puts specific emphasis on the dynamics of deeper integration at the company level and their respective policy implications. Besides a general discussion of deeper integration and trade in services liberalization, the study contains detailed assessments of individual sectors - especially the backbone services (e.g. transport, telecommunications, financial markets, electricity) and other sectors of relevance for deeper integration (tourism, IT-enabled services, distribution services). Even though the focus is on regional integration, multilateral liberalization issues are factored into the analysis (e.g. the GATS, the WTO Doha Round) and options for the pursuit of an "open regionalism" are explore.Publication Liberalizing Trade in Services : A Survey(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-10)Since the mid 1980s a substantial amount of research has been undertaken on trade in services. Much of this is inspired by the World Trade Organization or regional trade agreements, especially the European Union, but an increasing number of papers focus on the impacts of services sector liberalization. This paper surveys the literature, focusing on contributions that investigate the determinants of international trade and investment in services, the potential gains from greater trade (and liberalization), and efforts to cooperate to achieve such liberalization through trade agreements. It concludes that there is increasing evidence that services liberalization is an important source of potential welfare gains, but relatively little research has been done that can inform the design of international cooperation-both trade agreements and development assistance-so as to more effectively promote development objectives.Publication East Asian FTAs in Services(Washington, DC, 2007-06)Bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) are proliferating across the globe, fundamentally altering the governance of world trade. Many of the recently concluded FTAs are comprehensive in their coverage, seeking to not only dismantle barriers to trade in goods but also the liberalization of trade in services. What have FTAs in services actually accomplished? This paper offers an assessment of the new generation of services agreements that have been concluded in the East Asia region. Until recently, governments in this region had been hesitant to enter into bilateral or regional arrangements. Yet since the year 2000-when only one regional services agreement was in force-twenty-four agreements have been signed that include at least one party in East Asia. Additionally, around 40 FTAs are currently being negotiated in the region, which suggests an even more prominent role for FTAs in the future.Publication Regulatory Cooperation, Aid for Trade and the General Agreement on Trade in Services(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)This paper discusses what could be done to expand services trade and investment through a multilateral agreement in the World Trade Organization. A distinction is made between market access liberalization and the regulatory preconditions for benefiting from market opening. The authors argue that prospects for multilateral services liberalization would be enhanced by making national treatment the objective of World Trade Organization services negotiations, thereby clarifying the scope of World Trade Organization commitments for regulators. Moreover, liberalization by smaller and poorer members of the World Trade Organization would be facilitated by complementary actions to strengthen regulatory capacity. If pursued as part of the operationalization of the World Trade Organization's 2006 Aid for Trade taskforce report, the World Trade Organization could become more relevant in promoting not just services liberalization but, more importantly, domestic reforms of services policies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication World Development Report 1987(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987)This report, consisting of two parts, is the tenth in the annual series assessing development issues. Part I reviews recent trends in the world economy and their implications for the future prospects of developing countries. It stresses that better economic performance is possible in both industrial and developing countries, provided the commitment to economic policy reforms is maintained and reinforced. In regard to the external debt issues, the report argues for strengthened cooperation among industrial countries in the sphere of macroeconomic policy to promote smooth adjustment to the imbalances caused by external payments (in developing countries). Part II reviews and evaluates the varied experience with government policies in support of industrialization. Emphasis is placed on policies which affect both the efficiency and sustainability of industrial transformation, especially in the sphere of foreign trade. The report finds that developing countries which followed policies that promoted the integration of their industrial sector into the international economy through trade have fared better than those which insulated themselves from international competition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication World Development Report 2011(World Bank, 2011)The 2011 World development report looks across disciplines and experiences drawn from around the world to offer some ideas and practical recommendations on how to move beyond conflict and fragility and secure development. The key messages are important for all countries-low, middle, and high income-as well as for regional and global institutions: first, institutional legitimacy is the key to stability. When state institutions do not adequately protect citizens, guard against corruption, or provide access to justice; when markets do not provide job opportunities; or when communities have lost social cohesion-the likelihood of violent conflict increases. Second, investing in citizen security, justice, and jobs is essential to reducing violence. But there are major structural gaps in our collective capabilities to support these areas. Third, confronting this challenge effectively means that institutions need to change. International agencies and partners from other countries must adapt procedures so they can respond with agility and speed, a longer-term perspective, and greater staying power. Fourth, need to adopt a layered approach. Some problems can be addressed at the country level, but others need to be addressed at a regional level, such as developing markets that integrate insecure areas and pooling resources for building capacity Fifth, in adopting these approaches, need to be aware that the global landscape is changing. Regional institutions and middle income countries are playing a larger role. This means should pay more attention to south-south and south-north exchanges, and to the recent transition experiences of middle income countries.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.