Publications

Trade and Investment Rules for Energy

V. Facilitating Cross-border Movement of Energy Services Personnel

Recommendations

To consolidate various regional efforts and to move toward a broader consensus pending reactivation of the Doha Round, the Task Force has developed a number of recommendations as part of broader trade enhancing initiatives for the energy sector.

• Pending a resumption of WTO negotiations, governments should endorse the objective of facilitating trans-boundary movement of energy services personnel. These efforts should balance the twofold need to respect reasonable and acceptable national security requirements while at the same time speeding the approval of cross-border movement of ESP.
   
• To further these objectives, governments should expand linkages between and among regions and States through arrangements, understandings, and protocols governing conditions of entry. Developing these linkages should take into account current regional initiatives as useful models in the energy sector for facilitating cross-border movement of personnel.
   
• Means to minimize differences among national and regional approaches should be pursued through the development of jointly agreed security protocols, understandings, and arrangements for background checks, screening, documentation, and other State security matters.
   
• As a further step, ways to link with other national and regional programs and initiatives to enlarge the network of ESP entry arrangements should be explored. All of the above should be geared to the special needs of the energy sector.