Balancing GATS Obligations and The Public Interest in Light of Turkiye's Schedule of Specific Commitments and Uzbekistan's WTO Accession

Abstract

This article examines how GATS reconciles binding services-liberalisation commitments with States' regulatory space for public-interest objectives, using Turkiye's 1994 Schedule of Specific Commitments as a case study for Uzbekistan's ongoing WTO accession. It shows that the GATS governmental-authority exception (Article I:3(b)-(c)) is narrower and legally more uncertain than commonly assumed, so the real safeguard for public interest lies in scheduling choices: which sectors are left fully open, "Unbound", or subject to calibrated limitations. Turkiye's schedule shows a differentiated strategy: broad openness in tourism, calibrated limits in maritime, postal and technical-testing services, and caution in education and health. The article argues that Uzbekistan, negotiating its own schedule from scratch, should not rely on the governmental-authority exception for its mixed public–private health and education systems, but should instead adopt Turkiye's technique of explicit, mode-specific limitations to reconcile liberalisation gains with the protection of essential public functions.