Research on Interpretation Method of GATS Schedules----Hybrid Reform or Textualism

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) schedules are treaty-level instruments that lock in each WTO members market-access and national-treatment commitments. In relevant cases, contemporary panels and the Appellate Body have overwhelmingly privileged a literal reading of these schedules, primarily invoking the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) Article 31 while marginalising Article 32. This paper illustrates the flaws of textualism through the ChinaElectronic Payment Services dispute (DS413), in which a 2001 schedule drafted under the pre-digital CPC 813 nomenclature was stretched to cover electronic payment services. This paper also proposes a hybrid interpretive methodology that integrates VCLT Articles 31 and 32, embeds member-driven clarification mechanisms and modernises the underlying classification system as case studies, and demonstrates how the hybrid model would have preserved regulatory space, reduced sovereignty erosion, and future-proofed schedules against technological shocks. To practically implement hybrid interpretation, the paper outlines a concrete reform roadmap comprising four steps: burden-shifting protocols in dispute settlement, Working Party footnotes for acceding members, Joint Interpretative Statements under GATS Article X:1, and biannual technological reviews by a reconstituted WTO Technical Committee on Services Classification.