WTO STARS

It was originally scheduled to run until the end of 2004. After the Cancun conference collapsed and the Hong Kong meeting made limited headway, the target was shifted to the end of 2006, but the talks have remained stalled.

This week's meeting in Bali is billed as a do-or-die attempt to breathe new life into the Doha round under its new director general Roberto Azevedo.

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The WTO was formed at the end of the GATT's Uruguay Round that ran from 1986 to 1994. WTO agreements cover not only goods, as was the case under the GATT, but also trade in services, inventions, creations and designs.

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The WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which had laid down the rules of commerce since 1948. The GATT was part of a framework of international organisations including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank created after World War II to discourage policies such as protectionism considered to have aggravated the Great Depression of the 1930s. The GATT oversaw eight rounds of trade liberalisation negotiations.

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The basic principles of the WTO (according to the WTO):
Trade Without Discrimination
No Most Favoured Nation (MFN) Treatment - no special deals to trading partners, all members of WTO must be treated the same
No National Special Treatement - locals and foreigners are treated equally
Freer Trade
Predictability through Binding - promising not to raise tariffs is called binding a tariff and binding leads to greater certainty for businesses
Promoting Fair Competition
Encouraging Development and Economic Reform

by:Faisal khan

The WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which had laid down the rules of commerce since 1948. The GATT was part of a framework of international organisations including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank created after World War II to discourage policies such as protectionism considered to have aggravated the Great Depression of the 1930s. The GATT oversaw eight rounds of trade liberalisation negotiations.

-- The WTO was formed at the end of the GATT's Uruguay Round that ran from 1986 to 1994. WTO agreements cover not only goods, as was the case under the GATT, but also trade in services, inventions, creations and designs.

-- Although a procedure for settling disputes existed under the GATT, the WTO system is faster and more extensive, even though trade cases can still last for several years from an initial decision to a final appeals ruling.

WTO rulings are binding and cannot be blocked. Experts hear complaints, give rulings and authorise a country to impose sanctions against another WTO member.

Contentious issues have included aid for the aircraft and shipbuilding industries, trade in bananas, corporate tax breaks, Internet gambling, textiles, sugar and steel.
By Mohammad Khizr

The World Trade Organization meets for its ninth ministerial conference on the Indonesian island of Bali this week, fighting to salvage a deal on slashing barriers to global commerce.

Here are some facts about the trade body:

-- The WTO was established in January 1995 with the aim of helping global commerce flow as freely and fairly as possible.

It also oversees trade rules agreed by its members.

-- Based in Geneva, the WTO has 159 members. About three quarters of them are developing countries. Yemen is set to become the 160th member at this week's meeting, which runs from Tuesday to Friday.

WTO Structure:

The WTO has (at the point of writing) 140 members who account for approx 90% of world trade. Most agreements in the WTO are arrived at by consensus (i.e. everybody agrees - not one member dissents). Majority votes are possible but none so far have occurred. It is also worth noting that all the WTO's agreements have been ratified by the members states' parliaments (where such exist) in contrast to the case for GATT. [Source: WTO website].
Here can be found an organization diagram that summarizes all the information. Below I list the main elements.

1.Ministerial Conference

There shall be a Ministerial Conference composed of representatives of all the Members, which shall meet at least once every two years. The Ministerial Conference shall carry out the functions of the WTO and take actions necessary to this effect. The Ministerial Conference shall have the authority to take decisions on all matters under any of the Multilateral Trade Agreements, if so requested by a Member, in accordance with the specific requirements for decision-making in this Agreement and in the relevant Multilateral Trade Agreement.

2.General Council

There shall be a General Council composed of representatives of all the Members, which shall meet as appropriate. In the intervals between meetings of the Ministerial Conference, its functions shall be conducted by the General Council. The General Council shall also carry out the functions assigned to it by this Agreement.

3.Multitude of Committees, Bodies and Councils
For example: Dispute Settlement Body (DSU), Councils for Trade in Goods, Trade in Services and for TRIPS etc.

The basic principles of the WTO (according to the WTO):

1.Trade Without Discrimination

2.No Most Favoured Nation (MFN) Treatment - no special deals to trading partners, all members of WTO must be treated the same

3.No National Special Treatement - locals and foreigners are treated equally

4.Free Trade

5.Predictability through Binding - promising not to raise tariffs is called binding a tariff and binding leads to greater certainty for businesses

6.Promoting Fair Competition

7.Encouraging Development and Economic Reform

World Trade Organisation History:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) came into being on January 1st 1995. It was the outcome of the lengthy (1986-1994) Uruguay round of GATT negotiations. The WTO was essentially an extension of GATT. It extended GATT in two major ways. First GATT became only one of the three major trade agreements that went into the WTO (the other two being the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the agreements on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)). Second the WTO was put on a much sounder institutional footing than GATT. With GATT the support services that helped maintain the agreement had come into being in an ad hoc manner as the need arose. The WTO by contrast is a fully fledged institution (GATT also was, at least formally, only an agreement between contracting parties and had no independent existence of its own while the WTO is a corporate body recognized under international law)

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The latest round of trade talks has cost sub-Saharan Africa an estimated US$600 million per year. This could be why in June 1999, 30 African countries signed a declaration against new trade agreements. This could be why, also, developing nations used the opportunity of the Seattle protests to voice their opposition to WTO trade talks. ("Africa Recovery", United Nations, 1999)

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