The digital economy has profoundly restructured the forms and architecture of international trade, with cross-border services trade increasingly emerging as the core driver of global growth. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), born before the internet era, exhibits significant institutional shortcomings when confronted with emerging issues such as digitally delivered services and cross-border data flows. Regional trade agreements, while making breakthroughs at the rule level, have further exacerbated governance fragmentation. This article systematically deconstructs four major pressures on the GATS framework. These pressures include classification difficulties, rigid commitment models, missing data flow rules, and inadequate domestic regulatory coordination. It also analyzes the fragmented flaws of regional agreements. On this basis, it puts forward three reconstruction paths. The paths are to restore the WTO’s core functions, promote institutional opening-up, and build an inclusive rule system.
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Share and Cite
Li, Y. (2026) Dilemmas and Reconstruction of International Legal Regulation of Cross-border Services Trade in the Context of the Digital Economy. Journal of Social Development and History, 2(2), 70-74. https://doi.org/10.71052/jsdh/KFVD8462