The Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on Services Domestic Regulation is a plurilateral arrangement among a subset of WTO members that sets procedural disciplines on how governments administer licensing requirements, licensing procedures, qualification requirements, qualification procedures, and technical standards in services sectors. It does not liberalize market access or change the sectors a member has scheduled under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); instead, it targets the administrative friction—opaque application processes, excessive fees, gender-discriminatory criteria, slow timelines—that can nullify scheduled commitments.
The initiative was launched as a Joint Statement at the WTO's 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017. Negotiations concluded in December 2021, when participating members issued a Declaration on the Conclusion of Negotiations on Services Domestic Regulation. Participants are implementing the disciplines by incorporating them into their individual GATS schedules of specific commitments through certifications under GATS Article XXI procedures, which means the obligations apply on a most-favored-nation basis to all WTO members once certified, even though only participants undertook them.
Core disciplines include:
- Transparency: publishing licensing requirements and timeframes in advance
- Reasonable timeframes for processing applications
- Independence of authorization authorities from suppliers they regulate
- Acceptance of electronic applications and authenticated copies
- Non-discrimination between men and women in authorization criteria—a notable first for WTO rulebooks
- Fees that are reasonable and not themselves a restriction on supply
The participant group exceeds 70 members, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and many developing economies, but excludes India, South Africa, and the United States, which have at times questioned the legality of plurilateral outcomes grafted onto the multilateral framework. The WTO Secretariat has estimated annual trade cost savings in the range of tens of billions of dollars once fully implemented, though such projections are contested.
Example
In December 2021, 67 WTO members—including the EU, China, and the United Kingdom—concluded the JSI on Services Domestic Regulation and began certifying the new disciplines into their GATS schedules.
Frequently asked questions
No. It only governs how authorization procedures are administered in sectors a member has already scheduled under GATS; it does not add market access or national treatment commitments.
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