The WTO and Trade in Services, edited by Bernard Hoekman, the Director of International Trade Department of the World Bank, a comprehensive collection of forty-eight articles on trade in services spanning the period from 1985 to 2009, is a timely addition to the existing literature on the subject. This book is part of the Edward Elgar's series on Critical Perspectives on the Global Trading System and the WTO. With the advent of the WTO and the signing of the General Agreement in Trade in Services (GATS) concomitant with the rapid expansion of cross-border trade in services, studies on trade in services are slowly but steadily on the rise.

This book is truly multidisciplinary in its approach. Its articles include contributions from leading academics, legal practitioners, national policy-makers, and staff of the European Commission, WTO, and the World Bank. The contributors come from all continents of the inhabited world and their contributions embody a wide array of viewpoints. Despite this comprehensiveness, there is a distinct lack of authorship from two continents—Asia and Africa. In a similar vein, instead of multiple contributions by some authors, works of some more authors could have been included. This, of course, is neither a criticism of the competence of the respective authors nor of the quality of their works.

The Introduction, written by Hoekman, presents a splendid overview of the articles featured in the book. He not only succinctly summarizes the main findings of each of the articles but also very aptly introduces the reader to the important relevant works on the topics covered in these articles. He observes that, except for the members of the European Union, much of the liberalization in trade in services is attributable to unilateral reforms undertaken by WTO Member States, not to their legal obligations under the laws of the WTO or preferential trade agreements (p. xxxv). He concludes by arguing that efforts to regulate traditional market entry barriers can only be economically significant if they are complemented by effectively dealing with external factors such as enhancing the ability of firms to use existing technology (p. xxxv).

The two volumes of the book are divided into four parts. Volume I, Part I focuses on the factors and pattern of global trade in services. Volume I, Part II deals with regulatory barriers to trade in services, governmental policies underlying such barriers, and the welfare-enhancing effect of the liberalization of trade in services. Volume II, Part I covers the origin of the GATS, the GATS commitments of various WTO members, the fundamental features of the GATS jurisprudence, and the issues surrounding the ongoing Doha Round negotiations on further liberalization of trade in services within the WTO regime. Volume II, Part II deals with the treatment of trade in services in various bilateral and multilateral preferential trade agreements. In addition to the analysis of trade in services in general, the book contains a number of service sector specific articles, covering sectors such as accountancy, energy, insurance, maritime, and transport.

Reviewing a book consisting of so many articles by various authors in less than a thousand words is by no means an easy task and it inevitably entails the unfortunate omission of even merely mentioning brilliant individual articles which warrant discussion. This is in a way testament of the complexity of the task that the editor might have faced in selecting and commenting on articles covering a period of almost a quarter of a century. He must be highly commended for performing those tasks very successfully as the articles, as diverse as they are, seem to fit together quite smoothly, and his commentaries on the articles are exquisite. One thing that is conspicuously missing in the book is an index, which would have been useful for readers. Understandably, indexing such a large volume authored by multiple contributors would be a painstaking task, but nonetheless it probably is a desirable one for those readers who may be in need of locating a particular subject promptly.

Because of the coverage of very well written articles by lawyers, economists, scholars of international relations, public policy, and political science, the book would be significant for scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. Some of the articles, particularly those in Volume I, contain complex economic analysis and they may not be an easy read for many lawyers who, like this reviewer, have no formal education in economics. That said, a lawyer by training would still get a substantial dividend from reading this book, when she/he is willing to study WTO laws on trade in services in their wider policy context. Furthermore, some of the articles (particularly those in Volume II), which are written by lawyers, as expected conduct thorough textual legal analysis of the GATS and preferential trade agreements. These articles would have appeal to those who are interested in a textual approach to law.

Another caveat is that, being a collection of research articles, a feature of the book is that readers with no background knowledge of the WTO or trade in services may face some difficulty in comprehending some of the articles which have originally been written for specialists. However, the other side of the coin is possibly that the book would be an invaluable tool for undertaking any comprehensive research on the global trade in services. In view of its all-embracing scope, this book may well be an essential beginning point for researchers on trade in services for a considerable period of time.