Short History and Objectives of the 1994 WTO Agreement

Abstract

Definitions are central to the regulation of public procurement, especially given the blurring that has occurred in recent years between public and private entities and their respective areas of activity. This is particularly true in a WTO context where, as has been described, there is generally a positive list approach to entity coverage, and a variety of member practices with respect to the listing of specific entities.¹ Following an overview of the nature of the political challenges that arise in defining procurement — the ‘carrot’ that goes with the ‘stick’ of taxation — this chapter will develop a working definition for this public activity. It will then briefly summarize the historical evolution of the WTO procurement disciplines, proceeding from the UN negotiations immediately after the Second World War on this subject in the context of efforts to create an International Trade Organization (ITO), describing the lengthy discussions over the ‘concept of discrimination’ in public procurement that took place during the 1960s and 1970s in the OECD (Blank et al., 1996) and, ultimately, resulted in the Tokyo Round ‘code’ on government procurement, and concluding with the coming into force of the 1994 GPA. This ‘story’ has been well documented (Blank et al., 1996; McCrudden, 2007). As will be seen, however, one cannot appreciate the comparative politics that underlie the GPA’s regulatory methodology without revisiting it.