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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 that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade. It officially commenced operations on 1 January 1995, pursuant to the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, thus replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that had been established in 1948. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was a proposed agreement to eliminate or reduce the trade barriers among all countries in the Americas, excluding Cuba. Negotiations to establish the FTAA ended in failure, however, with all parties unable to reach an agreement by the 2005 deadline they had set for themselves. Still, contemporary discourses have not been invalidated – re-newed talks are anticipated.
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).
International trade law includes the appropriate rules and customs for handling trade between countries. However, it is also used in legal writings as trade between private sectors. This branch of law is now an independent field of study as most governments have become part of the world trade, as members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Since the transaction between private sectors of different countries is an important part of the WTO activities, this latter branch of law is now a very important part of the academic works and is under study in many universities across the world.
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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.
Timothy John Groser is a New Zealand politician and diplomat. A member of the New Zealand National Party, Groser was a Member of Parliament between 2005 and 2015, and a cabinet minister between 2008 and 2015. He resigned from Parliament on 19 December 2015 to take up the role of New Zealand's ambassador to the United States of America.
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Since its creation in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has worked to maintain and develop international trade. As one of the largest international economic organizations, it has strong influence and control over trading rules and agreements, and thus has the ability to affect a country's economy immensely. The WTO policies aim to balance tariffs and other forms of economic protection with a trade liberalization policy, and to "ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible". Indeed, the WTO claims that its actions "cut living costs and raise standards, stimulate economic growth and development, help countries develop, [and] give the weak a stronger voice." Statistically speaking, global trade has consistently grown between one and six percent per annum over the past decade, and US$38.8 billion were allocated to Aid for Trade in 2016.
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The Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations of the World Trade Organization are based on the Doha Declaration of 2001 that calls for a reduction or elimination in tariffs, particularly on exportable goods of interest to developing countries. NAMA covers manufacturing products, fuel and mining products, fish and fish products, and forestry products. These products are not covered by the Agreement on Agriculture or the negotiations on services. The WTO considers the NAMA negotiations important because NAMA products account for almost 90% of the world's merchandise exports.
The Indian Trade Service (ITS) is a civil service under Group A of the Central Civil Services of the executive branch of the Government of India. It was created as a specialized cadre to handle India's international trade & commerce on the basis of the recommendations of the Mathur Committee in 1965. At present Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), under Ministry of Commerce, is the cadre controlling authority of the ITS. DGFT has 38 regional offices across India, and plays a significant role in promoting India's international trade with its policy formulation and implementation.
Vangelis (Evangelos) Vitalis is a New Zealand diplomat and trade negotiator currently working as the Deputy Secretary for the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Bali Package is a trade agreement resulting from the Ninth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Bali, Indonesia on 3–7 December 2013. It is aimed at lowering global trade barriers and is the first agreement reached through the WTO that is approved by all its members. The package forms part of the Doha Development Round, which started in 2001.
Ashok Gulati is an Indian agricultural economist and a former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), the advisory body of the Government of India on food supplies and pricing policies. Gulati was instrumental in the hiking the minimum support price of several food grains. Currently he is Infosys chair professor for Agriculture at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He is also a member of the Task Force on Agriculture set by the prime minister under NITI Aayog and chairman of the Expert Group on Agriculture Market Reforms (2015). He was an active member of the high-level committee set up by the NDA Government to restructure and reorient Food Corporation of India in order to improve its operational and financial efficiency.
References
This article incorporates public domain material from Jasper Womach. Report for Congress: Agriculture: A Glossary of Terms, Programs, and Laws, 2005 Edition (PDF). Congressional Research Service.
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- ↑ "WTO | Agriculture - negotiations modalities overview". www.wto.org. Retrieved 2015-12-20.
- ↑ "Modalities" . Retrieved 2015-12-20.
- ↑ "WTO | GATT bilateral negotiating material by Round". www.wto.org. Retrieved 2015-12-20.