GATT and WTO trade roundsSources

a)The GATT years: from Havana to Marrakesh, World Trade Organizationb)Timeline: World Trade Organization – A chronology of key events, BBC News

c)Brakman-Garretsen-Marrewijk-Witteloostuijn, Nations and Firms in the Global Economy, Chapter 10: Trade and Capital Restriction

Name Start Duration Countries Subjects covered Achievements

Geneva April 1947 7 months 23 Tariffs Signing of GATT, 45,000 tariff concessions affecting $10 billion of trade

Annecy April 1949 5 months 13 Tariffs Countries exchanged some 5,000 tariff concessions

TorquaySeptember

19508 months 38 Tariffs Countries exchanged some 8,700 tariff concessions,

cutting the 1948 tariff levels by 25%

Geneva II

January 1956

5 months 26 Tariffs,admission of Japan

$2.5 billion in tariff reductions

DillonSeptember

196011

months26 Tariffs Tariff concessions worth $4.9 billion of world trade

Kennedy May 196437

months62 Tariffs,

Anti-dumpingTariff concessions worth $40 billion of world trade

TokyoSeptember

197374

months102 Tariffs, non-tariff measures,

"framework" agreementsTariff reductions worth more than $300 billion dollars

achieved

UruguaySeptember

198687

months123

Tariffs, non-tariff measures, rules, services, intellectual

property, dispute settlement, textiles, agriculture, creation

of WTO, etc

The round led to the creation of WTO, and extended the range of trade negotiations, leading to major reductions in tariffs (about 40%) and agricultural subsidies, an agreement to allow full access for

textiles and clothing from developing countries, and an extension of intellectual property rights.

DohaNovember

2001? 141

Tariffs, non-tariff measures, agriculture, labor standards, environment, competition, investment, transparency,

patents etc

The round is not yet concluded.

World Trade Organization (English)

世界贸易组织 (Chinese)Organización Mundial del Comercio(Spanish)Organisation mondiale du commerce(French)

Current members of the WTO (in green)

Formation 1 January 1995

Headquarters Geneva, Switzerland

Membership 151 member states

Official   languages English, French, Spanish [1]

Director-General Pascal Lamy

Budget175 million Swiss francs (approx. 141 million USD)

Staff 625[2]

Website www.wto.int

[edit] Formal Structure

According to WTO rules, all WTO members may participate in all councils,

committees, etc., except Appellate Body, Dispute Settlement panels, and plurilateral

committees.[citation needed]

Highest level: Ministerial Conference

The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which

has to meet at least every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all

of which are countries or separate customs territories. The Ministerial Conference

can make decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements

[1].

Second level: General Council

The daily work of the ministerial conference is handled by three groups: the General

Council, the Dispute Settlement Body, and the Trade Policy Review Body. All three

consist of the same membership - representatives of all WTO members - but each

meets under different rules [2].

1. The General Council, the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body in Geneva,

meets regularly to carry out the functions of the WTO. It has representatives (usually

ambassadors or equivalent) from all member governments and has the authority to

act on behalf of the ministerial conference which only meets about every two years.

The council acts on behalf on the Ministerial Council on all of the WTO affairs. The

current chairman is Amb. Muhamad Noor Yacob (Malaysia) [3].

2. The Dispute Settlement Body is made up of all member governments, usually

represented by ambassadors or equivalent. The current chairperson is H.E. Mr.

Bruce Gosper (Australia).

3. The WTO General Council meets as the Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB) to

undertake trade policy reviews of Members under the TRPM. The TPRB is thus

open to all WTO Members. The current chairperson is H.E. Ms. Claudia Uribe

(Colombia).[citation needed]

Third level: Councils for Trade

The Councils for Trade work under the General Council. There are three councils -

Council for Trade in Goods, Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual

Property Rights, and Council for Trade in Services - each council works in different

fields. Apart from these three councils, six other bodies report to the General Council

reporting on issues such as trade and development, the environment, regional

trading arrangements and administrative issues.[citation needed]

1. Council for Trade in Goods- The workings of the General Agreement on Tariffs

and Trade (GATT) which covers international trade in goods, are the responsibility of

the Council for Trade in Goods. It is made up of representatives from all WTO

member countries. The current chairperson, as of 2007-02-13, is Amb. Yonov

Frederick Agah (Nigeria).[4]

2. Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights- Information on

intellectual property in the WTO, news and official records of the activities of the

TRIPS Council, and details of the WTO’s work with other international organizations

in the field [38].

3. Council for Trade in Services- The Council for Trade in Services operates under

the guidance of the General Council and is responsible for overseeing the

functioning of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It is open to all

WTO members, and can create subsidiary bodies as required.[citation needed]

Fourth level: Subsidiary Bodies

There are subsidiary bodies under each of the three councils.[citation needed]

1. The Goods Council- subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Goods. It has 11

committees consisting of all member countries, dealing with specific subjects such

as agriculture, market access, subsidies, anti-dumping measures and so on.

Committees include the following:[citation needed]

Information Technology Agreement (ITA) Committee

State Trading Enterprises

Textiles Monitoring Body - Consists of a chairman and 10 members acting under it.

Groups dealing with notifications - process by which governments inform the WTO

about new policies and measures in their countries.

2. The Services Council- subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Services which

deals with financial services, domestic regulations and other specific commitments.[citation needed]

3. Dispute Settlement panels and Appellate Body- subsidiary under the Dispute

Settlement Body to resolve disputes and the Appellate Body to deal with appeals.[citation needed]

Other committees[citation needed]

Committees on

Trade and Environment

Trade and Development (Subcommittee on Least-Developed Countries)

Regional Trade Agreements

Balance of Payments Restrictions

Budget, Finance and Administration

Working parties on

Accession

Working groups on

Trade, debt and finance

Trade and technology transfer

The WTO operates on a one country, one vote system, but actual votes have never

been taken. Decisionmaking is generally by consensus, and relative market size is

the primary source of bargaining power. The advantage of consensus decision-

making is that it encourages efforts to find the most widely acceptable decision.

Main disadvantages include large time requirements and many rounds of negotiation

to develop a consensus decision, and the tendency for final agreements to use

ambiguous language on contentious points that makes future interpretation of

treaties difficult.[citation needed]

In reality, WTO negotiations proceed not by consensus of all members, but by a

process of informal negotiations between small groups of countries. Such

negotiations are often called "Green Room" negotiations (after the colour of the

WTO Director-General's Office in Geneva), or "Mini-Ministerials", when they occur in

other countries. These processes have been regularly criticized by many of the

WTO's developing country members which are often totally excluded from the

negotiations.[citation needed]

Richard Steinberg (2002) argues that although the WTO's consensus governance

model provides law-based initial bargaining, trading rounds close through power-

based bargaining favouring Europe and the United States, and may not lead to

Pareto improvement.[citation needed][39]

Principles of the trading system

The WTO establishes a framework for trade policies; it does not define or specify

outcomes. That is, it is concerned with setting the rules of the trade policy games.[33]

Five principles are of particular importance in understanding both the pre-1994

GATT and the WTO:

1. Non-Discrimination. It has two major components: the most favoured nation

(MFN) rule, and the national treatment policy. Both are embedded in the main

WTO rules on goods, services, and intellectual property, but their precise

scope and nature differ across these areas. The MFN rule requires that a

WTO member must apply the same conditions on all trade with other WTO

members, i. e. a WTO member has to grant the most favorable conditions

under which it allows trade in a certain product type to all other WTO

members. [33] "Grant someone a special favour and you have to do the same

for all other WTO members."[34] National treatment means that imported and

locally-produced goods should be treated equally (at least after the foreign

goods have entered the market) and was introduced to tackle non-tariff

barriers to trade (e. g. technical standards, security standards et al.

discriminating against imported goods).[33]

2. Reciprocity. It reflects both a desire to limit the scope of free-riding that may

arise because of the MFN rule, and a desire to obtain better access to foreign

markets. A related point is that for a nation to negotiate, it is necessary that

the gain from doing so be greater than the gain available from unilateral

liberalization; reciprocal concessions intend to ensure that such gains will

materialize.[35]

3. Binding and enforceable commitments. The tariff commitments made by

WTO members in a multilateral trade negotiation and on accession are

enumerated in a schedules (list) of concessions. These schedules establish

"ceiling bindings": a country can change its bindings, but only after negotiating

with its trading partners, which could mean compensating them for loss of

trade. If satisfaction is not obtained, the complaining country may invoke the

WTO dispute settlement procedures.[36]

4. Transparency. The WTO members are required to publish their trade

regulations, to maintain institutions allowing for the review of administrative

decisions affecting trade, to respond to requests for information by other

members, and to notify changes in trade policies to the WTO. These internal

transparency requirements are supplemented and facilitated by periodic

country-specific reports (trade policy reviews) through the Trade Policy

Review Mechanism (TPRM).[37] The WTO system tries also to improve

predictability and stability, discouraging the use of quotas and other measures

used to set limits on quantities of imports.[34]

Safety valves. In specific circumstances, governments are able to restrict trade. There are three types of provisions in this direction: articles allowing for the use of trade measures to attain noneconomical objectives; articles aimed at ensuring "fair competition"; and provisions permitting intervention in trade for economic reasons.[37]