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."
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to resolve points of difference, gain an advantage for an individual or collective, or craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. The parties aspire to agree on matters of mutual interest. The agreement can be beneficial for all or some of the parties involved. The negotiators should establish their own needs and wants while also seeking to understand the wants and needs of others involved to increase their chances of closing deals, avoiding conflicts, forming relationships with other parties, or maximizing mutual gains. Distributive negotiations, or compromises, are conducted by putting forward a position and making concessions to achieve an agreement. The degree to which the negotiating parties trust each other to implement the negotiated solution is a major factor in determining the success of a negotiation.
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 166 members representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
The Reciprocal Tariff Act provided for the negotiation of tariff agreements between the United States and separate nations, particularly Latin American countries. The Act served as an institutional reform intended to authorize the president to negotiate with foreign nations to reduce tariffs in return for reciprocal reductions in tariffs in the United States up to 50%. It resulted in a reduction of duties. This was the policy of the low tariff Democrats in response to the high tariff Republican program which produced the Smoot–Hawley tariff of 1930 that raised rates, and sharply reduced international trade. The Reciprocal Tariff Act was promoted heavily by Secretary of State Cordell Hull.
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between Americans and the British in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which had begun in 1792. For the Americans, the treaty's policy was designed by Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, supported by President George Washington. It angered France and bitterly divided American public opinion, encouraging the growth of two opposing American political parties, the pro-Treaty Federalists and the anti-Treaty Democratic-Republicans.
The Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), official name as the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, was a bilateral trade agreement reached by negotiators for Canada and the United States on October 4, 1987, and signed by the leaders of both countries on January 2, 1988. The agreement phased out a wide range of trade restrictions in stages, over a ten-year period, and resulted in a substantial increase in cross-border trade as an improvement to the last replaced trade deal. With the addition of Mexico in 1994, CUSFTA was superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When states recognize one another as sovereign states and agree to diplomatic relations, they create a bilateral relationship. States with bilateral ties will exchange diplomatic agents such as ambassadors to facilitate dialogues and cooperations.
A secret treaty is a treaty in which the contracting state parties have agreed to conceal the treaty's existence or substance from other states and the public. Such a commitment to keep the agreement secret may be contained in the instrument itself or in a separate agreement.
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 increase global trade.
An international environmental agreement or sometimes environmental protocol, is a type of treaty binding in international law, allowing them to reach an environmental goal. In other words, it is "an intergovernmental document intended as legally binding with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural resources."
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), was a proposed trade agreement between 12 Pacific Rim economies: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States. In the United States, the proposal was signed on 4 February 2016 but not ratified as a result of significant domestic political opposition. After taking office, the newly elected President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from TPP in January 2017, therefore ensuring the TPP could not be ratified as required and did not enter into force. The remaining countries negotiated a new trade agreement called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which incorporated most of the provisions of the TPP and which entered into force on 30 December 2018.
Diaspora politics in the United States is the political behavior of transnational diasporas of ethnic groups, their relationship with their ethnic homelands and their host states, as well as their role in inter-ethnic relations. This article describes case studies and theories of political scientists studying diaspora politics within the specific context of the United States. The general study of diaspora politics is part of the broader field of diaspora studies.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the governmental body responsible for conducting foreign relations of the Republic of Turkey. The Ministry is responsible for Turkey's diplomatic missions abroad as well as providing support for Turkish citizens and promoting Turkish culture. The ministry implements Turkish foreign policy in accordance with the country's national interests. Established on 2 May 1920, its primary duties are administering diplomatic missions, negotiating international treaties and agreements, and representing the Republic of Turkey at the United Nations. The ministry is headquartered in the Turkish capital of Ankara and counts on more than 200 missions as embassies, permanent representation offices and consulates general, abroad. As of 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs maintains 235 diplomatic posts worldwide. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs is Hakan Fidan, who has held the position since 3 June 2023.
Paradiplomacy is the involvement of non-central governments in international relations. The phenomenon includes a variety of practices, from town twinning to transnational networking, decentralized cooperation, and advocacy in international summits. Following the movement of globalisation, non-central governments have been playing increasingly influential roles on the global scene, connecting across national borders and developing their own foreign policies. Regions, states, provinces and cities seek their way to promote cooperation, cultural exchanges, trade and partnership, in a large diversity of ways and objectives depending on their decentralization, cultural, and socio-economical contexts. This trend raises new questions concerning public international law and opened a debate on the global governance regime, and the evolution of the nation-led system that has provided the grounds for the international political order in the last centuries.
Climate governance is the diplomacy, mechanisms and response measures "aimed at steering social systems towards preventing, mitigating or adapting to the risks posed by climate change". A definitive interpretation is complicated by the wide range of political and social science traditions that are engaged in conceiving and analysing climate governance at different levels and across different arenas. In academia, climate governance has become the concern of geographers, anthropologists, economists and business studies scholars.
A commercial policy is a government's policy governing international trade. Commercial policy is an all encompassing term that is used to cover topics which involve international trade. Trade policy is often described in terms of a scale between the extremes of free trade on one side and protectionism on the other. A common commercial policy can sometimes be agreed by treaty within a customs union, as with the European Union's common commercial policy and in Mercosur. A nation's commercial policy will include and take into account the policies adopted by that nation's government while negotiating international trade. There are several factors that can affect a nation's commercial policy, all of which can affect international trade policies.
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of February 2023, 195 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2020, but rejoined in 2021.
The international system is for the most part made up by small powers or small states. While a small power in the international system may never equal or surpass the effect of larger powers, they can nevertheless influence the workings of the international system together with others. The formalization of the division between small and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. Before that the assumption had been that all independent states were in theory equal regardless of actual strength and responsibilities.
National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy is the memoir of Hassan Rouhani, the former President of Iran and the first secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Rouhani led Iran's nuclear case under President Mohammad Khatami as tensions began to escalate over Iran's nuclear program. Approximately two years after the book was published in 2011, Rouhani was elected as President of Iran on 15 June 2013. The book focuses on Iran's nuclear program and challenges to it by Western countries, especially the United States and three European countries of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The book covers a period of 678 days when Rouhani and his team were handling Iran's nuclear case. Furthermore, the history of Iran's nuclear technology and the process of achieving complete nuclear fuel cycle are major topics of the book.
In international relations, migration diplomacy is 'the use of diplomatic tools, processes, and procedures to manage cross-border population mobility,' including 'both the strategic use of migration flows as a means to obtain other aims, and the use of diplomatic methods to achieve goals related to migration.' Migration has come to constitute an increasingly-important area of states' engagement with one another, with bilateral multilateral strategies including the promotion or discouragement of bilateral migratory flows; agreements on preferential treatment to certain foreign nationals; the initiation of guest-worker programmes or other short-term labor migration schemes; the deportation of foreign nationals; and so on.
