Despite its institutional deficiencies, the GATT managed to function as a de facto international organization, sponsoring eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations. The WTO incorporates the principles of the GATT and provides a more enduring institutional framework for implementing and extending them.
Then select Subject as the search field and search for one of the following subject headings:. For greater precision, search for a subject heading in the first line and use the remaining lines to search by title or by keyword for additional terms. Be sure to select the appropriate search field for each line. Search this Guide Search. The system does allow tariffs and, in limited circumstances, other forms of protection.
More accurately, it is a system of rules dedicated to open, fair and undistorted competition. So too are those on dumping exporting at below cost to gain market share and subsidies. The issues are complex, and the rules try to establish what is fair or unfair, and how governments can respond, in particular by charging additional import duties calculated to compensate for damage caused by unfair trade.
Many of the other WTO agreements aim to support fair competition: in agriculture, intellectual property, services, for example. And so on. The WTO system contributes to development. And the agreements themselves inherit the earlier provisions of GATT that allow for special assistance and trade concessions for developing countries. Over three quarters of WTO members are developing countries and countries in transition to market economies.
During the seven and a half years of the Uruguay Round, over 60 of these countries implemented trade liberalization programmes autonomously.
At the same time, developing countries and transition economies were much more active and influential in the Uruguay Round negotiations than in any previous round, and they are even more so in the current Doha Development Agenda. At the end of the Uruguay Round, developing countries were prepared to take on most of the obligations that are required of developed countries. A ministerial decision adopted at the end of the round says better-off countries should accelerate implementing market access commitments on goods exported by the least-developed countries, and it seeks increased technical assistance for them.
More recently, developed countries have started to allow duty-free and quota-free imports for almost all products from least-developed countries. On all of this, the WTO and its members are still going through a learning process.
And it has been updated. What happened? Since then, trade in services — transport, travel, banking, insurance, telecommunications, transport, consultancy and so on — has become much more important. So has trade in ideas — inventions and designs, and goods and services incorporating this "intellectual property". The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade always dealt with trade in goods, and it still does.
It has been amended and incorporated into the new WTO agreements. The WTO brings the three together within a single organization, a single set of rules and a single system for resolving disputes.
It aimed to liberalize trade by reducing tariffs and removing quotas among member countries. Each member of the GATT was expected to open its markets equally to other member nations, removing trade discrimination.
The agreements negotiated through GATT reduced average tariffs on industrial goods from 40 per cent to less than five per cent It was an early step towards economic globalization. The GATT was established in to regulate world trade. It was created to boost economic recovery after the Second World War by reducing or eliminating trade tariffs, quotas and subsidies. During the Great Depression , a breakdown of international relations and an increase in trade regulation made poor economic conditions worse.
These factors contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War. After the war, the Allies believed that a multilateral framework for world trade would loosen the protectionist policies that defined the s. It would also create an economic interdependency that would encourage partnership and reduce the risk of conflict. The idea was to establish a code of conduct that would progressively liberalize remove or loosen restrictions on international trade.
Within this code of conduct, consultation on trade issues among member nations could take place and be resolved. Data on world trade characteristics and trends could be collected and shared. It helped the US-led capitalist West spread its influence by liberalizing trade through multilateral agreements. The West, with which Canada was aligned, gained more economic allies through these agreements. This strengthened its global influence in the face of the communist Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union.
It admitted former communist bloc countries, such as Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. See also United Nations. Several sessions were held. The agreement came into effect on 1 January
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