background GATT and WTO?

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1. 
   

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   A brief history of the WTO and GATT
   The World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor,
   the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
   (GATT) have been enormously successful over the
   last 50 years at reducing tariff and other trade barriers
   among an ever-increasing number of countries. The
   predecessor to the WTO began in 1947 with only 23
   members; today it has 146 members, comprising approximately
   97 percent of world trade.1 See box 1 for
   a timeline of GATT and the WTO.2
   Although the WTO, established in 1995, is relatively
   young for an international institution, it has its
   origins in the Bretton Woods Conference at the end
   of World War II. At this conference, finance ministers
   from the Allied nations gathered to discuss the failings
   of World War I’s Versailles Treaty and the creation of
   a new international monetary system that would support
   postwar reconstruction, economic stability, and
   peace. The Bretton Woods Conference produced two
   of the most important international economic institutions
   of the postwar period: the International Monetary
   Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction
   and Development (the World Bank). Recognizing
   that the beggar-thy-neighbor tariff policies of the 1930s
   had contributed to the environment that led to war, ministers
   discussed the need for a third postwar institution,
   the International Trade Organization (ITO), but
   left the problem of designing it to their colleagues in
   government ministries with responsibility for trade.3

   Answer by simple 220 days ago

2. 
   

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   The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was signed in 1947, is a multilateral agreement regulating trade among about 150 countries. According to its preamble, the purpose of the GATT is the “substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis.”

   The GATT functioned de facto as an organization, conducting eight rounds of talks addressing various trade issues and resolving international trade disputes. The Uruguay Round, which was completed on December 15, 1993 after seven years of negotiations, resulted in an agreement among 117 countries (including the U.S.) to reduce trade barriers and to create more comprehensive and enforceable world trade rules. The agreement coming out of this round, the Final Act Embodying the Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, was signed in April 1994. The Uruguay Round agreement was approved and implemented by the U.S. Congress in December 1994, and went into effect on January 1, 1995.
   WorldTradeLaw.n­et contains WTO negotiating history materials.

   This agreement also created the World Trade Organization (WTO), which came into being on January 1, 1995. The WTO implements the agreement, provides a forum for negotiating additional reductions of trade barriers and for settling policy disputes, and enforces trade rules. The WTO launched the ninth round of multilateral trade negotiations under the “Doha Development Agenda” (DDA or Doha Round) in 2001. “Doha Development Agenda: Negotiations, Implementation and Development” provides information about the Doha Round and links to texts that have been generated by the negotiations.

   GATT and WTO materials are available in the Goodson Law Library and in Perkins. The Davis Library at the University of North Carolina has been a depository library for GATT materials, and continues to receive most of the materials published by the WTO.

   Answer by simple 220 days ago