Trade and labor migration: GATS Mode 4 and migration agreements

The Global Commission on International Migration characterizes international responsibility for migration as “diffuse”. Against the renaissance of bilateral migration agreements, this occasional paper discusses the advantages and shortcomings of liberalizing the movement of service providers in mode 4 of GATS. The lack of meaningful commitments in low-skilled services occupations can be linked to the definitional ambiguities within the scope of GATS, the rigidity of its scheduling structure and assymetric services trade negotiations. In light of this situation, bilateral migration agreements are gaining an increasingly important profile, even if they are no substitute for migration’s “missing international regime”. The paper discusses how their rationale differs markedly from the one of liberalizing movement in a trade agreement.

Nonetheless, bilateral agreements have broken new ground over mode 4 of GATS in terms of facilitating migrant selection, training and hiring. They are also better equipped to mitigate the risks of migration, such as overstays, brain drain and exploitation. The paper closes by observing that nation states’ are not disinterested to maintain a two-track landscape of treaty-based migration management, however damaging this split may be to migrant workers.