The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade in cooperation with the United Nations System. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
The status of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign nation. The designation was changed from most favored nation (MFN) to normal trade relations by Section 5003 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. Permanent was added to normal trade relations some time later.
The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), spanning from 1986 to 1993 and embracing 123 countries as "contracting parties". The Round led to the creation of the World Trade Organization, with GATT remaining as an integral part of the WTO agreements. The broad mandate of the Round had been to extend GATT trade rules to areas previously exempted as too difficult to liberalize and increasingly important new areas previously not included. The Round came into effect in 1995 with deadlines ending in 2000 under the administrative direction of the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO).
The director-general of the World Trade Organization is the officer of the World Trade Organization (WTO) responsible for supervising and directing the organization's administrative operations. Since the World Trade Organization's decisions are made by member states, either through a Ministerial Conference or through the General Council, the director-general has little power over matters of policy – the role is primarily advisory and managerial in nature. The director-general supervises the WTO secretariat of about 700 staff and is appointed by WTO members for a term of four years.
The term "Singapore issues" refers to the work of four working groups set up during the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference of 1996 in Singapore. These groups are tasked with the following issues:
The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is the trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which commenced in November 2001 under then director-general Mike Moore. Its objective was to lower trade barriers around the world, and thus facilitate increased global trade.
The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, also known as the SPS Agreement or just SPS, is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. Broadly, the sanitary and phytosanitary ("SPS") measures covered by the agreement are those aimed at the protection of human, animal or plant life or health from certain risks.
This is a timeline of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
At the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 2003, or MC5, trade ministers from 146 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), representing 93 percent of global commerce, convened in Cancún, Mexico, in September 2003. The conference was held at the Cancún Centro de Convenciones, Cancún. The goal of this meeting was to set a direction for nations within the WTO to negotiate agreements on agriculture, non-agricultural market access, services, and special treatment for developing countries. The negotiations were supposed to be completed by January 1, 2005. Although the agreements had a set date to come to terms, the Cancun Ministerial Conference ended up failing in its mission and did not come to any firm decisions to fix the problems it sought to address. Participants failed to make global trade negotiations concrete and foundered at that time, so the next steps were uncertain. However, attempts were made afterwards to learn from this failure. Within the committee, there exists a hierarchy within the World Trade Organization. It is made up of trade Administrators that come from all the different sectors of the WTO.
The Ministerial Conference is the top decision making body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). There have been twelve ministerial conferences from 1996 to 2022, usually every two years.
South Centre is an intergovernmental organisation of developing nations, established by an intergovernmental agreement (treaty), which came into force on 31 July 1995, with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It functions as an independent policy think tank, whilst also holding observer status at the United Nations and other development agencies.
Labour standards in the World Trade Organization are binding rules, which form a part of the jurisprudence and principles applied within the rule making institutions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Labour standards play an implicit, but not an overt role within the WTO, however it forms a prominent issue facing the WTO today, and has generated a wealth of academic debate.
Non-violation nullification of benefits (NVNB) claims are a species of dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization arising under World Trade Organization multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. NVNB claims are controversial in that they are widely perceived to promote the social vices of unpredictability and uncertainty in international trade law. Other commentators have described NVNB claims as potentially inserting corporate competition policy into the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU).
Iran officially submitted an application to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 19 July 1996. From July 1996 to May 2001, Iran’s application had not been considered, mainly as a result of US objections and the US veto power in the WTO Council. From May 2001 Iran’s application for WTO membership has been brought up 22 times. At the 22nd time, on 26 May 2005, Iran’s application for WTO membership was approved unanimously by the organization’s members. Thus the process of Iran’s membership in the WTO started. Once Iran’s application was accepted and examined by WTO General Council, Iran became WTO observer member and started the process of full membership in the organization. In November 2009 Iran submitted the Foreign Trade Regime Memorandum as the process of accession entered a new phase.
The Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Union or EAEU Customs Union is a customs union of 5 post-Soviet states consisting of all the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union which initially became effective on January 1, 2010 at the date of implementation of the common external tariff (CET) as the Customs Union of the Eurasian Economic Community or Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It was inherited from the Eurasian Economic Community and is now regulated by Part Two of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, EAEU Customs Code, other international agreements and by decisions of supranational bodies as Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, Intergovernmental Council and Eurasian Economic Commission.
The Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral agreement under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which regulates the procurement of goods and services by the public authorities of the parties to the agreement, based on the principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination.
China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 11 December 2001, after the agreement of the Ministerial Conference. The admission was preceded by a lengthy process of negotiations and required significant changes to the Chinese economy. Its membership has been contentious, with substantial economic and political effects on other countries and controversies over the mismatch between the WTO framework and China's economic model. Assessing and enforcing compliance has become issues in China-US trade relations, including how China's noncompliance creates benefits for its own economy.
Afghanistan received membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, December 17, 2015. Afghanistan is 164th in the world and 36th among the less-developed countries that have received WTO membership.
The Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), was confirmed in Bali, Indonesia in December 2013 at the Ninth Ministerial Conference. After almost 20 years of Negotiations the agreement was officially an open invitation for acceptance from the 160 members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 27 December 2014. However the agreement will only be ratified once 2/3 of the members have informed the WTO of their agreement. For the WTO, the agreement can be viewed as a historic achievement as it is the first multilateral agreement since the WTO's inception in 1995. The Trade Facilitation Agreement of 2014 is a global multilateral initiative to rationalise the stringent procedures which govern international trade. The principal focus of the Agreement is to have numerous positive consequences on developed and Least Developed Countries. Estimates have shown that the Trade Facilitation Agreement would reduce trade costs by an average of 14.5%. In turn, this would prospectively improve trade globally by on trillion dollars. This reduction of bureaucratic 'red tape' will have favourable effects on small to medium Businesses, making it easier for them to trade and join global value chains. One of the most significant aspects of this agreement, lies in the new principle that developing and Least Developed Countries commitments to the implementation of the provisions outlined by the agreement are conditioned on their procurement of necessary technical capacity.
