The WTO is the only international
body dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart
are the WTO agreements, the legal ground-rules for international
commerce and for trade policy.
The agreements have three main
objectives:
-
to help trade flow as freely as
possible,
-
to achieve further liberalization
gradually through negotiation,
-
and to set up an impartial means
of settling disputes.
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Established: 1 January 1995.
Created by: Uruguay Round
negotiations (1986-94)
Membership: 146 countries (as of 4
April 2003)
Budget: 154 million Swiss francs for
2003
Secretariat staff: 550
Head: Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi
(director-general)
Functions:
-
Administering WTO trade
agreements
-
Forum for trade negotiations
-
Handling trade disputes
-
Monitoring national trade
policies
-
Technical assistance and training
for developing countries
-
Cooperation with other
international organizations
The WTO creation in 1995 marked the
biggest reform of international trade since 1948. During those 47
years, international commerce had come under GATT which helped
establish a prosperous multilateral trading system. But by the
1980s an overhaul was due.
The latest and largest round, was
the Uruguay Round which lasted from 1986 to 1994 and led to the WTO
creation. Whereas GATT had mainly dealt with trade in goods, the
WTO and its agreements now cover trade in services, and in traded
inventions, creations and designs (intellectual property).
Three main
purposes
The system's overriding purpose
is to help trade flow as freely as possible - so long as there are
no undesirable side-effects. That partly means removing obstacles.
It also means ensuring that individuals, companies and governments
know what the trade rules are around the world, and giving them the
confidence that there will be no sudden changes of policy. In other
words, the rules have to be "transparent" and
predictable.
Because the agreements are drafted
and signed by the community of trading nations, often after
considerable debate and controversy, one of the WTO most important
functions is to serve as a forum for trade negotiations.
A third important side to the WTO
work is dispute settlement. Trade relations often involve
conflicting interests. Contracts and agreements, including those
painstakingly negotiated in the WTO system, often need
interpreting. The most harmonious way to settle these differences
is through some neutral procedure based on an agreed legal
foundation. That is the purpose behind the dispute settlement
process written into the WTO agreements.
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