Overview of The WTO

 Objective of presentation

 WTO: The Beginnings

 Growth in Trade Underway

 A New Multilateral Organization

 The WTO: what is it?

 How does the WTO function?

 Principles of the Trading System

 Provisions for developing countries

 Progressing by packages

 The Round to end all rounds

 The WTO Agreement

 Liberalising trade in goods

 Textiles - back in the mainstream

 Agriculture: fairer markets for all

 Trade remedies

 Standards and procedures

 Administrative procedures

 Services: rules for growth and investment

 Services: the key rules

 Services: Better Access to Markets

 Intellectual Property: protection and enforcement of rights

 TRIPS: what does it cover?

 Settling Disputes: the heart of the system

 Meetings of Ministers

  Singapore Ministerial

 Geneva and Seattle Ministerials

 Doha Ministerial Meeting

 Cancun Ministerial Meeting

 Recent Developments

WTO: The Beginnings

Born in 1995, but not so young

The WTO is certainly one of the most important institutions dealing with international economic relations. In broad terms, its role is twofold. To establish and enforce the rules of the road for international trade in both goods and services.  And second, to progressively liberalize that trade, presently valued at close to eight thousand billion dollars every year.

While the WTO began its life on 1 January 1995, its origins are more than half a century old. They lie in the economic and social disaster of the Great Depression of the 1930's. At this time in history, countries turned inwards, and provoked a descending spiral of declining output and trade. The reaction in terms of trade policy was to resort to extreme protectionism. This meant raising tariffs and other trade barriers to such a level that imports were drastically reduced. Discriminatory arrangements that favoured some countries and excluded others became the name of the game.

The need for economic security

The Second World War followed. With the advent of War many important lessons were learned. One of the most important was that a secure political future could not be built without greater economic security. The search was on for better international instruments of international cooperation. This search bore fruit at a conference held in Bretton Woods in the United States in 1944. At this conference, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created to deal with matters such as currency instability and the financing of post war reconstruction.

The ITO: A First Attempt

Attempts to create a counterpart International Trade  organization - an ITO - to deal with problems of international trade - took much longer. An interim agreement was agreed to between a limited number of countries. However, it did not deal with many of the most important aspects of international trade.  This arrangement took the form of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the GATT - and came into being in 1948. The fully-developed answer to the question of what would be the institution to deal with international trade came half a century later. It came with the birth of the World Trade Organization.

Key insights

Notwithstanding the early failure to create an international trade  organization, there were significant improvements in the conduct of world trade in the post war period. This was largely due to two key insights on the part of those responsible for trade policy. First, there was a realisation that the road to post war economic recovery lays in progress towards open markets and liberalized trade. The second was that trade would not grow unless traders themselves could count on a degree of stability and predictability in the system. The best way of achieving this was to develop a mutually agreed set of rules, binding on all members and enforceable through dispute settlement. Trade would be conducted according to rules - not the power of individual nations. Together, these two insights have shaped the multilateral trading system, and have been fundamental to its success.