National treatment

Following the principle of national treatment of foreign and domestic suppliers must be treated identically. It is enshrined in all trade agreements of the WTO, trade in goods (Art. III GATT), Trade in Services ( GATS Article XVII ) and Intellectual Property ( TRIPS Article III ).

Through the national treatment principle initially occurs only equality between residents and nonresidents and the guarantee of minimum rights ( Assimiliationsprinzip ). He does not overcome the diversity of national legal systems, but prevents a collision. The principle has thus primarily foreign legal content, but implies the validity of various mutually independent national rights, and thus the principle of territoriality.

Within the WTO, the equality is true because of national treatment only if the product ( or service ) comes to the domestic market. Duties on imported goods ( or services) are therefore still WTO -compliant and do not violate the national treatment.

Criticism of this scheme is noisy especially in the context of the GATS. Once a state allows that services may be provided by domestic private companies, government expenditures and subsidies must also private sellers are from foreign countries are available. The problem this can be, especially in the fields of higher education, its prisons, kindergartens etc.. So it is theoretically possible that U.S. private colleges require the same subsidies as a German state university. The money that belongs to private providers, then missing the state institutions. Exceptions are only a few areas of government policy sovereignty. In many areas it can happen, however, that the provision of which is set by the state with the help of the GATS treaty override. The trend towards privatization of government functions is thus accelerated and introduced the law.