From GATT to WTO
Share your crayons
Happy day, amazing people!!!
We should share our surplus with the ones who really need it. This is the basic format of trade.
Synopsis
| GATT |
| GATT rounds |
| WTO |
| WTO Structure |
| Norms for joining WTO |
GATT
ITO (International Trade Organization) was supposed to be formed along with IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank after the second world war but it didn’t happen. Hence GATT came into force until an organization was formed to regulate international trade.
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) is an agreement signed by 23 nations initially to carry on international trade without any trade barriers like tariffs and non-tariffs among its member nations. GATT was supposed to be an interim agreement but it stayed from 1948 to 1995 until WTO came into existence as an international institution to regulate trade.
GATT Rounds
GATT had 8 rounds of negotiation since its inception in 1947.
GATT Trade Rounds
From the above table we could see that, for the first 5 rounds, member nations were discussing only about the tariff reduction. And during these rounds’ negotiations were done on the bases of “product by product approach” (known as the “request/offer” approach).
During the time of Dillon round, discussions regarding the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC)were made.
In Kennedy round, discussion about dumping and measures to be taken by importing countries when they find dumping has been done in their area were discussed. Next is the Tokyo round, in this round, fundamental provisions of GATT were reviewed and improved. Tokyo round recognized not only tariffs but also non-tariff measures like subsidies and countervailing duties, technical barriers to trade, import licensing procedure, government procurement, custom valuation and revised anti- dumping codes.
Final round was Uruguay round, due to some crisis and deadlocks this round lasted for 7 years. In the Uruguay round negotiations on trade in agriculture & textile, trade in services, trade related aspects of intellectual property rights were made. This round also led to the birth of World Trade Organization.
WTO
World Trade Organization was formed by 123 nations signing the “Marrakesh agreement” on January 1st, 1995. The functions of WTO are more or less same as GATT. Such as liberalize trade, provide forum for negotiation, settle disputes and review trade policies. Then, some of the main objectives of WTO are
- Raise the standard of living and income
- Provide employment opportunities
- Expand production and trade
- Optimal use of natural resources
WTO Structure
The Ministerial conference is at the top consisting of representative from all WTO members. They meet every two years and make decision on matters related to multilateral trade agreement. Day to day activities is taken care by General council and they must report to Ministerial conference. Dispute settlement body and The Trade policy review body are the convenes of General council. The General council delegate responsibility to 3 other bodies, namely the Council for trade in goods, Council for trade in services and Council for trade related aspects of intellectual property rights. There are also separate committee for Trade and Development, Balance of payment, Budget finance & administration and finally for plurilateral agreement. These committee must report to General council as well.
| Do you Know? |
| When Astronaut Neil Armstrong and his colleagues returned from moon, they had to declare tariff-exempt for moon rock and moon dust samples to the customs officials. |
Norms for joining WTO
Any country wishing to join the WTO must submit an application form along with memorandum covering all the aspects of its current foreign trade regime in detail to General council. The Council will then set up a working party to review the documents and to clarify any doubts regarding the memorandum. Alongside, the applicant country must engage in bilateral negotiation with interested WTO member to establish their concessions and commitments on goods and services. Finally, the draft of working party report (report on proceedings and conditions of entry, a draft accession protocol) and the agreed schedules (market access negotiations) from bilateral agreement are send to General council. If the applicant country got two third of the WTO members votes, then they are free to sign the protocol and become a member.
We hope you guys have understood about how GATT turned into WTO.
Ok before signing off
Love what you do, do what you love…. Bye
From,
Simply grasp