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ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION OF EDUCATION PROVISION WITHIN THE EC & WTO: A HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE
John Morijn
Sažetak
This paper addresses the impact of WTO- and EC-driven
liberalisation of trade in services on non-trade policies. Adopting a human
rights perspective, which is given as having a critical bearing on
both “trade” and “non-trade” in “trade and …” discussions, it seeks
particularly to map an analysis of the merits of (further) subjecting
education provision to economic liberalisation. As concerns the WTO,
assessment of the GATS´ wording leads to the fi nding that education
provision seems likely to be construed as within GATS’ scope, and
therefore fully subject to its disciplines. In that context, it is submitted
that states’ decisions concerning offering (and seeking) commitments
in the area of education provision need to be informed by human
rights obligations, such as that of provision “free of charge”. In the EC
context, distinction is made of the internal and external component of
education-as-service discussions. Internally, the Court of Justice has
excluded education provision from the legal discipline of the free movement
of services, a situation seemingly increasingly at odds with the
far-reaching subjection of the provision of similar public goods, such
as health care. Yet, due to education’s specifi c nature in forming individuals
and societies, it is argued that there are important reasons to
keep excluding (parts of) education provision from the EC services law
discipline. Externally, the concern relates in particular to the possibility
that developing countries will be requested by the EC to provide
EC-based economic operators access to their education ´markets´ at a
stage when it is not yet possible to determine whether the EC foreign
policy objective of human rights advancement can be guaranteed.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
28518
URI
Datum izdavanja:
3.11.2006.
Posjeta: 3.779 *