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The World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. Where countries have faced trade barriers and wanted them lowered, the negotiations have helped to open markets for trade. But the WTO is not just about opening markets, and in some circumstances its rules support maintaining trade barriers for example, to protect consumers or prevent the spread of disease. The ITO was initially envisaged, along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as one of the key pillars of post-World War II reconstruction and economic development. In Havana in 1948, the UN Conference on Trade and Employment concluded a draft charter for the ITO, known as the Havana Charter, which would have created extensive rules governing trade, investment, services, and business and employment practices. However, the United States failed to ratify the agreement. Meanwhile, an agreement to phase out the use of import quotas and to reduce tariffs on merchandise trade, negotiated by 23 countries in Geneva in 1947, came into force as the GATT on January 1, 1948.
Although the GATT was expected to be provisional, it was the only major agreement governing international trade until the creation of the WTO. The GATT system evolved over 47 years to become a de facto global trade organization that eventually involved approximately 130 countries. Through various negotiating rounds, the GATT was extended or modified by numerous supplementary codes and arrangements, interpretations, waivers, reports by dispute-settlement panels, and decisions of its council. The Ministerial Conference is the highest organ of the WTO and is to meet at least once
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. Where countries have faced trade barriers and wanted them lowered, the negotiations have helped to open markets for trade. But the WTO is not just about opening markets, and in some circumstances its rules support maintaining trade barriers for example, to protect consumers or prevent the spread of disease. The ITO was initially envisaged, along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as one of the key pillars of post-World War II reconstruction and economic development. In Havana in 1948, the UN Conference on Trade and Employment concluded a draft charter for the ITO, known as the Havana Charter, which would have created extensive rules governing trade, investment, services, and business and employment practices. However, the United States failed to ratify the agreement. Meanwhile, an agreement to phase out the use of import quotas and to reduce tariffs on merchandise trade, negotiated by 23 countries in Geneva in 1947, came into force as the GATT on January 1, 1948.
Although the GATT was expected to be provisional, it was the only major agreement governing international trade until the creation of the WTO. The GATT system evolved over 47 years to become a de facto global trade organization that eventually involved approximately 130 countries. Through various negotiating rounds, the GATT was extended or modified by numerous supplementary codes and arrangements, interpretations, waivers, reports by dispute-settlement panels, and decisions of its council. The Ministerial Conference is the highest organ of the WTO and is to meet at least once