Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

9.5.2 Mode IV in the WTO
the Wto’s mode Iv in the General agreement
on trade in Services allows member countries to
stipulate provisions on market access for migrant
workers. 145 Few have scheduled any commitments
under mode Iv, and the commitments to date
have been limited to intra-corporate transfers
and/or highly skilled personnel. the World bank
estimates that mode Iv accounts for less than
2% of total trade in services (World bank, 2004).
countries that have made mode Iv commitments
have undermined them by including an excessive
number of limitations (chanda 2004; Hanson,
2009). In this sense GatS has done very little to
remove barriers to labour migration. this is linked
to the fact that the comparative advantage of many
lIcs lies in offering medium- and low-skilled
labour-intensive services (Winters, 2003).
there have been proposals to improve mode Iv
(Wto, 2000a;b, Wto, 2001 a-d), but structuring
it under GatS has stifled the debate on labour
mobility. considerably less importance is attached
to labour than to goods, despite the fact that many
Wto members (including migrant-receiving and
migrant-sending countries) derive substantial
benefits from labour mobility (basnett, 2012).
In 2011 Wto members agreed to provide a least
Developed country waiver on GatS, which opened
the gateway for expanding mode Iv for workers
from lDcs. the Wto operates on the principle of
most Favoured nation (mFn), which implies that its
members will not discriminate against each other.
the waiver allows a country to extend preferential
treatment to a country or a group of countries
without having to extend the same treatment
to the entire membership. the lDc waiver has
been agreed only in principle, so it is too early to
comment on its implications for lDc members in
the Wto, in particular whether it will expand crossborder
mobility for workers from lDcs. once it is
operational it is very likely that lDcs will seek to
expand access to labour markets for their workers.
the Wto waiver on GatS for lDcs is a step in
the right direction. but the expansion of labour
mobility in the Wto will still remain constrained
– both for lDcs that benefit from the waiver and
for the rest of the membership, particularly other
developing countries (basnett, 2012). as labour
mobility in Wto is a sub-set in the GatS, the
extent to which labour mobility is expanded will
be determined by which service sectors are included
in a member’s commitment. the selected sectors
may have little scope to benefit workers from
lDcs. Hence, the benefits for lDcs will depend
on what service sectors are included and the types
of commitment made by Wto members.
9.5.3 Creating an agency to match labour
and jobs
If a number of countries were willing to establish
a new organisation, a labour-jobs matching agency
could provide a means to exchange information and
databases on migrant workers and could streamline
supply and demand (De buil and Siegel, 2012). It
could be particularly useful for small migrantreceiving
countries that lack the resources or
capacity to assess labour options from a range
of sending countries. potential migrants could
benefit because it could both expand the pool
of destinations and lower the costs of obtaining
information, and may improve labour standards.
144 GatS, which came into existence in 1994, allows members to define terms of market access under four modes of supply for trade in services.
these include: mode I (cross-border supply), mode II (consumption abroad), mode III (commercial presence) and mode Iv (presence of natural
person). although GatS concerns trade in services, mode Iv can be viewed as extending market-access provisions for temporary labour
mobility. mode Iv concerns service providers contracted in their home countries to provide services abroad. Each of these modes of supply is
formulated under specific trade in service areas, e.g. construction, hospitality, banking. mode Iv then becomes one of the means of supplying
those services. For instance, in trade in banking services mode I would involve a foreign bank setting up operations, while mode Iv would
involve foreign individuals providing banking expertise to clients. the Wto thus addresses the right of access, albeit for a very limited number
of migrants because workers must already be employed by the company that is sending them.
poSt-2015: Global actIon For an IncluSIvE anD SuStaInablE FuturE
If a number of
countries were
willing to
establish a new
organisation,
a labour-jobs
matching agency
could provide
a means to
exchange
information and
databases on
migrant workers
and could
streamline supply
and demand.
191