The paper addresses the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which succeeded the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) in 1994 and forms one of the most controversially discussed agreements within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO). GATS, which was decided upon at the end of the Uruguay Round but not negotiated in detail before 2001, regulates the transborder trade in services of all kind. The authors of the following chapters examine certain questions concerning the GATS, relating to its effects on as well as its perception in selected states of East and Southeast Asia. Four chapters deal with (a) forms of organized critique of globalization in Japan; (b) Japanese investment projects in Southeast Asia in lieu of international agreements on investment protection; (c) critique of globalization in Southeast Asia focussing on the case of national and transnational NGOs; and (d) interest articulation within the WTO as seen from the South.