All the recent talk about a boycott of the Olympics, or the opening ceremonies at least, has me wondering: Is there a WTO violation here? My guess is no, but I have more questions than definite answers. Some questions:
-- First, services seems like the most promising place to look, but what is the service to be considered here? Given that the athletes would be boycotting, is the proper UN CPC category "Services of athletes"?
-- What mode of service supply is involved? My first thought was that it would be the movement of natural persons, with non-Chinese athletes providing their services in China, to the Olympic games themselves. But maybe the services are really being provided to the fans, Chinese and non-Chinese, in China and elsewhere. In that case, the mode could be consumption abroad or cross-border trade.
-- Would these services benefit from the exception for "services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority"? Governments do have a fairly important role here, after all.
-- And, of course, the most important question: Have the potential boycotting governments made any commitments in their GATS Schedules that would be relevant here? I'm having a hard time with this part, in particular relating the actual services supplied to possible commitments that might have been made.
That's as far as I got with the analysis before my head started to spin. Anyone with clearer thoughts on this should feel free to set me straight.
