and/or due to its adoption of certain policies to embrace sustainable development. The formation of free-trade areas is considered an exception to the most favored nation (MFN) principle in the WTO because the preferences that parties to an FTA exclusively grant each other go beyond their accession commitments. Although Article XXIV of the GATT allows WTO Members to establish FTAs or to adopt interim agreements necessary for the establishment thereof, there are several conditions with respect to free-trade areas, or interim agreements leading to the formation of FTAs. According to Article XXIV:8(b) of the GATT, “a free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce (except, where necessary, those permitted under Articles XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV and XX) are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories.” The Decision on Differential and More Favorable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries adopted by signatories to the GATT in 1979 (the “Enabling Clause”) allows derogation to the MFN treatment in favor of developing and least developed countries (LDCs). It is the WTO’s legal basis for the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Particularly, merchandise exports from LDCs benefit from duty-free, quota-free market access, and from more favorable rules of origin. In order to gain preferential market access under these preferential trade arrangements, goods must satisfy applicable rules of origin and obtain proofs of origin to indicate that they are originating in an FTA partner country, or from a GSP beneficiary country. If imported goods fail to comply with origin requirements, benefit will be denied, and the goods will have to enter the importing market under non-preferential basis. Market Access in Services Trade Market access for services is by nature more complicated than that for goods. In the realm of merchandise trade, market access basically concerns the reduction of border measures as goods enter a foreign market. Whereas, in services trade, market access involves "reducing government policy interventions which are less visible and may be applied after a service supplier has entered the market." These measures often take the form of regulations directed at domestic policy objectives rather than external trade policy objectives. Governments usually have little consideration of the impacts of such interventions on market access for foreign services and service suppliers. Within the WTO framework,