INTRODUCTION

“There are number of ways looking at WTO .its an org for liberalizing trade acts place for them to settle disputes its not just liberalizing trade and in some circumstances its rules support maintaining trade barriers e.g.-top protect consumer or to prevent the spread of diseases”

Following is the brief history of GATT to WTO

The primary objective of GATT was promotion of world trade thru tariff reduction

GATT provided the reduction of tariffs and trade restriction in a phased manner over a period of time

In various of negotiations member nations agreed to tariff reduction over

large number of traded goods. In the Tokyo round held during the period 1973 to 1979 issues such improved trading framework and technical barriers to trade were negotiated

The last and the most significant round began in 1986 in punta del

Este,uruguay. it took more eight years of complex negotiations to complete this round. There were considerable differences among member nations over issues such as multi fiber agreement, trade in services, intellectual property rights anti dumping etc.

Due to the existence of these differences, the then director general of GATT, orthor dunkel,prepared a draft final act that what he believed could be the agreed outcome of the Uruguay round. The draft came to be known as dunkel draft, it was in the form of single treaty i.e. signing of the treaty meant complement agreement with all the provision without any exceptions. The draft was intensely discuses d and debited and was initially opposed by developing nations,labour unions and other right groups.finally,the final act was signed by all member nations in april1994. many developing nations had to sign the act, as they were under pressure from powerful trading country, especially the USA .

With the signing of the final act, the WTO was setup. The WTO agreement came into force from January 1. 1995. india has become one of the founder members of WTO, by ratifying the WTO agreement on dec 30,1994

While GATT was an legal agreement, WTO is an international organization setup has a permanent body to keep a watch on trade in goods and services, foreign investments, intellectual property rights, antidumping laws etc. with the objective of promoting free and fare trade.