began in 1986 in uruguay, so it is sometimes called the uruguay round concluded with an agreement 8...
TRANSCRIPT
Began in 1986 in Uruguay, so it is sometimes called the Uruguay round
Concluded with an agreement 8 years later in 1994.
Agreement signed in Marrakech, Morocco
Agriculture was included for the first time in an international trade agreement
WTO created in 1995 as one result of the negotiations
GATT becomes WTO (1995) 1. Acts as a forum for trade negotiations 2. Administers trade agreements 1. Settles trade disputes 2. Reviews national trade policies 3. Assists developing countries (technical
assistance and training programmes) 4. Cooperates with other international
organisations
Ministerial Conference
General Council› Dispute Settlement Body › Trade Policy Review Body
Councils› Council for Trade in Goods› Council for Trade in Services› Council for TRIPs
Committees and other subsidiary bodies
Decision-making
Implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements (Art. III:1 WTO)
Forum for negotiations (Art. III:2 WTO)
Dispute settlement (Art. III:3 WTO)
Review of national trade policies (TPRM) (Art. III:4 WTO)
Coherence in global economic policy-making (Art. III:5 WTO)
Seattle – a rough start (1999)
Doha – what happened? (2001)
Cancun – what happened? (2003)
Most of the world’s citizens first heard about the WTO at the Seattle “Millennium Round” (popularly known as the “Battle of Seattle”), when talks ended in failure amid massive street demonstrations
The agenda for Seattle was ambitious: agriculture, services, intellectual property rights, government procurement (contracts), and competition rules, to name a few.
This round is known as the Millennium Round, the Doha Round, and the Development Round
Political environment – there are now 148 WTO members – about twice the GATT round
Progress on regional agreements
Countries negotiate only what they would do anyway
The attempts to expand the coverage of the WTO agreements became more apparent with the launching of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) at the WTO’s 4th Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in 2001.
In a nutshell, the DDA seeks to start negotiations on non-agricultural tariffs, trade and environment, WTO rules like anti-dumping and subsidies, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, and intellectual property. The deadline for negotiations was on Jan. 1, 2005.
Agricultural subsidies Conflicts between trade liberalization
and environmental protection Competition policy Foreign investment protection Trade remedy laws (subsidies and
dumping)
Based on a draft ministerial declaration that was submitted by the WTO director general to ministers last ug. 31, 2003, moves by industrialized countries to include other non-trade issues at the Cancun Conference are facing stiff opposition from selected underdeveloped countries.
The call of third world governments to the monopoly-capitalist governments, especially those of the United States and the European Union, to made good their promise to remove domestic and export subsidies enjoyed by their homeland agriculture; and the drive of the monopoly-capitalist powers to push for even further liberalization in areas such as foreign investment