The
World Trade Organization
(
WTO) is an
international organization
designed by its founders to supervise and
liberalize international capital trade. The
organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the
Marrakesh Agreement, replacing
the
General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1947.
The World Trade Organization deals with regulation of trade between
participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating
and formalising trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process
aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements which
are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by
their
parliaments. Most of the issues
that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations,
especially from the
Uruguay Round
(1986-1994). The organization is currently endeavouring to persist
with a trade negotiation called the
Doha Development Agenda (or Doha
Round), which was launched in 2001 to enhance equitable
participation of poorer countries which represent a majority of the
world's population. However, the negotiation has been dogged by
"disagreement between exporters of agricultural bulk commodities
and countries with large numbers of subsistence farmers on the
precise terms of a 'special safeguard measure' to protect farmers
from surges in imports. At this time, the future of the Doha Round
is uncertain."
The WTO has 153 members, representing more than 95% of total world
trade and 30 observers, most seeking membership. The WTO is
governed by a ministerial conference, meeting every two years; a
general council, which implements the conference's policy decisions
and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a
director-general, who is appointed by the ministerial conference.
The WTO's
headquarters is at the Centre William Rappard
, Geneva
, Switzerland
.
History
ITO and GATT 1947
The WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), was established after
World War
II in the wake of other new multilateral institutions dedicated
to international economic cooperation - notably the
Bretton Woods
institutions
known as the
World Bank
and the
International Monetary Fund
. A comparable international institution for trade,
named the
International
Trade Organization was successfully negotiated. The ITO was to
be a United Nations specialized agency and would address not only
trade barriers but other issues indirectly related to trade,
including employment, investment, restrictive business practices,
and commodity agreements. But the ITO treaty was not approved by
the United States and a few other signatories and never went into
effect.
In the absence of an international organization for trade, the GATT
would over the years "transform itself" into a
de facto international organization.
GATT rounds of negotiations
The GATT was the only
multilateral
instrument governing international trade from 1948 until the WTO
was established in 1995. Despite attempts in the mid 1950s and
1960s to create some form of institutional mechanism for
international trade, the GATT continued to operate for almost half
a century as a semi-institutionalized multilateral treaty regime on
a provisional basis.
From Geneva to Tokyo
Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under the GATT. The first
GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing
tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties
brought about a GATT
anti-dumping Agreement and a
section on development. The Tokyo Round during the seventies was
the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that do not take
the form of tariffs, and to improve the system, adopting a series
of agreements on non-tariff barriers, which in some cases
interpreted existing GATT rules, and in others broke entirely new
ground. Because these
plurilateral agreements were not
accepted by the full GATT membership, they were often informally
called "codes". Several of these codes were amended in the Uruguay
Round, and turned into multilateral commitments accepted by all WTO
members. Only four remained plurilateral (those on government
procurement, bovine meat, civil aircraft and dairy products), but
in 1997 WTO Members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy
agreements, leaving only two.
Uruguay Round
Well before GATT's 40th anniversary, its members concluded that the
GATT system was straining to adapt to a new
globalizing world economy.
In response to the
problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration (structural
deficiencies, spill-over impacts of certain countries' policies on
world trade GATT could not manage etc.), the eighth GATT round —
known as the Uruguay Round — was launched in September 1986, in
Punta del
Este
, Uruguay
. It
was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed: the talks
were going to extend the trading system into several new areas,
notably trade in services and intellectual property, and to reform
trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles; all the
original GATT articles were up for review.
The Final Act
concluding the Uruguay Round and officially establishing the WTO
regime was signed during the April 1994 ministerial meeting at
Marrakesh
, Morroco
, and hence
is known as the Marrakesh
Agreement.
The GATT still exists as the WTO's umbrella treaty for trade in
goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations (a
distinction is made between
GATT 1994, the updated parts
of GATT, and
GATT 1947, the original agreement which is
still the heart of GATT 1994). GATT 1994 is not however the only
legally binding agreement included via the Final Act at Marrakesh;
a long list of about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and
understandings was adopted. The agreements fall into a structure
with six main parts:
Ministerial conferences
First ministerial conference
The
inaugural ministerial conference was held in Singapore
in 1996. Disagreements between largely
developed and developing economies emerged during this conference
over four issues initiated by this conference, which led to them
being collectively referred to as the "
Singapore issues".
Second ministerial conference
Was held
in Geneva in Switzerland.
Third ministerial conference
The third
conference in Seattle,
Washington
ended in failure, with massive demonstrations and
police and National Guard crowd control efforts drawing worldwide
attention.
Fourth ministerial conference
Was held
in Doha
In Persian Gulf
nation of Qatar
. The
Doha Development Round was
launched at the conference. The conference also approved the
joining of China, which became the 143rd member to join.
Fifth ministerial conference
The
ministerial conference was held in Cancún
, Mexico
, aiming at
forging agreement on the Doha round. An alliance of 22
southern states, the
G20 developing nations (led by India,
China and Brazil), resisted demands from
the
North for agreements on the so-called "
Singapore issues" and called for an end to
agricultural subsidies within
the EU and the US. The talks broke down without progress.
Sixth ministerial conference
The sixth
WTO ministerial conference was held in Hong Kong
from 13 December – 18 December 2005. It was
considered vital if the four-year-old
Doha
Development Agenda negotiations were to move forward
sufficiently to conclude the round in 2006. In this meeting,
countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export
subsidies by the end of 2013, and terminate any cotton export
subsidies by the end of 2006. Further concessions to developing
countries included an agreement to introduce duty free, tariff free
access for goods from the Least Developed Countries, following the
Everything But Arms initiative
of the European Union — but with up to 3% of tariff lines exempted.
Other major issues were left for further negotiation to be
completed by the end of 2010
Seventh ministerial conference
The WTO General Council, on 26 May 2009, agreed to hold a seventh
WTO ministerial conference session in Geneva from 30 November–3
December 2009. A statement by chairman Amb.
Mario Matus acknowledged that the prime purpose
was to remedy a breach of protocol requiring two-yearly "regular"
meetings, which had lapsed with the Doha Round failure in 2005, and
that the "scaled-down" meeting would not be a negotiating session,
but "emphasis will be on transparency and open discussion rather
than on small group processes and informal negotiating structures".
The general theme for discussion is "The WTO, the Multilateral
Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment"
Doha Round
The Doha Development Round started in
2001 and continues today.
The WTO
launched the current round of negotiations, the Doha Development
Agenda (DDA) or Doha Round, at the fourth ministerial conference in
Doha,
Qatar
in November 2001. The Doha round was to be
an ambitious effort to make globalization more inclusive and help
the world's poor, particularly by slashing barriers and subsidies
in farming. The initial agenda comprised both further trade
liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by commitments to
strengthen substantial assistance to developing countries.
The negotiations have been highly contentious and agreement has not
been reached, despite the intense negotiations at several
ministerial conferences and at other sessions. Disagreements still
continue over several key areas including agriculture
subsidies.
Functions
Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by
analysts as the most important:
- It oversees the implementation, administration and operation of
the covered agreements.
- It provides a forum for negotiations and for settling
disputes.
Additionally, it is the WTO's duty to review and propagate the
national trade policies, and to ensure the coherence and
transparency of trade policies through surveillance in global
economic policy-making. Another priority of the WTO is the
assistance of
developing,
least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to
WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and
training. The WTO is also a center of economic research and
analysis: regular assessments of the global trade picture in its
annual publications and research reports on specific topics are
produced by the organization. Finally, the WTO cooperates closely
with the two other components of the Bretton Woods system, the IMF
and the World Bank.
Principles of the trading system
The WTO establishes a framework for trade policies; it does not
define or specify outcomes. That is, it is concerned with setting
the rules of the trade policy games. Five principles are of
particular importance in understanding both the pre-1994 GATT and
the WTO:
- Non-Discrimination. It has two major
components: the most favoured
nation (MFN) rule, and the national treatment policy. Both are
embedded in the main WTO rules on goods, services, and intellectual
property, but their precise scope and nature differ across these
areas. The MFN rule requires that a WTO member must apply the same
conditions on all trade with other WTO members, i.e. a WTO member
has to grant the most favorable conditions under which it allows
trade in a certain product type to all other WTO members. "Grant
someone a special favour and you have to do the same for all other
WTO members." National treatment means that imported and
locally-produced goods should be treated equally (at least after
the foreign goods have entered the market) and was introduced to
tackle non-tariff barriers to trade (e.g. technical standards,
security standards et al. discriminating against imported
goods).
- Reciprocity. It reflects both a desire to
limit the scope of free-riding
that may arise because of the MFN rule, and a desire to obtain
better access to foreign markets. A related point is that for a
nation to negotiate, it is necessary that the gain from doing so be
greater than the gain available from unilateral liberalization; reciprocal
concessions intend to ensure that such gains will materialise.
- Binding and enforceable commitments. The
tariff commitments made by WTO members in a multilateral trade
negotiation and on accession are enumerated in a schedule (list) of
concessions. These schedules establish "ceiling bindings": a
country can change its bindings, but only after negotiating with
its trading partners, which could mean compensating them for loss
of trade. If satisfaction is not obtained, the complaining country
may invoke the WTO dispute settlement procedures.
- Transparency. The WTO members are required to
publish their trade regulations, to maintain institutions allowing
for the review of administrative decisions affecting trade, to
respond to requests for information by other members, and to notify
changes in trade policies to the WTO. These internal transparency
requirements are supplemented and facilitated by periodic
country-specific reports (trade policy reviews) through the Trade
Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The WTO system tries also to
improve predictability and stability, discouraging the use of
quotas and other measures used to set
limits on quantities of imports.
- Safety valves. In specific circumstances,
governments are able to restrict
trade. There are three types of provisions in this direction:
articles allowing for the use of trade measures to attain
noneconomic objectives; articles aimed at ensuring "fair
competition"; and provisions permitting intervention in trade for
economic reasons. Exceptions to the MFN principle also allow for
preferential treatment of developing
countries, regional free trade
areas and customs unions.
There are 11 committees under the jurisdiction of the Goods Council
each with a specific task. All members of the WTO participate in
the committees. The Textiles Monitoring Body is separate from the
other committees but still under the jurisdiction of Goods Council.
The body has its own chairman and only ten members. The body also
has several groups relating to textiles.
Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights
Information on intellectual property in the WTO, news and official
records of the activities of the TRIPS Council, and details of the
WTO’s work with other international organizations in the
field.
Council for Trade in Services
The Council for Trade in Services operates under the guidance of
the General Council and is responsible for overseeing the
functioning of the
General Agreement on
Trade in Services (GATS). It is open to all WTO members, and
can create subsidiary bodies as required.
The Service Council has three subsidiary bodies: financial
services, domestic regulations, GATS rules and specific
commitments.
Other committees
The General council has several different committees, working
groups, and working parties.
Committees on
- Trade and Environment
- Trade and Development (Subcommittee on Least-Developed
Countries)
- Regional Trade Agreements
- Balance of Payments Restrictions
- Budget, Finance and Administration
Working parties on
Working groups on
- Trade, debt and finance
- Trade and technology transfer
Trade Negotiations Committee
The Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) is the committee that deals
with the current trade talks round. The chair is WTO’s
director-general. The committee is currently tasked with the
Doha Development Round.
Voting system
The WTO operates on a
one country, one vote system, but
actual votes have never been taken. Decision making is generally by
consensus, and relative market size is the primary source of
bargaining power. The advantage of consensus decision-making is
that it encourages efforts to find the most widely acceptable
decision. Main disadvantages include large time requirements and
many rounds of negotiation to develop a consensus decision, and the
tendency for final agreements to use ambiguous language on
contentious points that makes future interpretation of treaties
difficult.
In reality, WTO negotiations proceed not by consensus of all
members, but by a process of informal negotiations between small
groups of countries. Such negotiations are often called "Green
Room" negotiations (after the colour of the WTO Director-General's
Office in Geneva), or "Mini-Ministerials", when they occur in other
countries. These processes have been regularly criticised by many
of the WTO's developing country members which are often totally
excluded from the negotiations.
Richard Harold Steinberg (2002)
argues that although the WTO's consensus governance model provides
law-based initial bargaining, trading rounds close through
power-based bargaining favouring Europe and
the United
States
, and may not lead to Pareto improvement.
Dispute settlement
In 1994, the WTO members agreed on the Understanding on Rules and
Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) annexed to
the "Final Act" signed in Marrakesh in 1994. Dispute settlement is
regarded by the WTO as the central pillar of the multilateral
trading system, and as a "unique contribution to the stability of
the global economy". WTO members have agreed that, if they believe
fellow-members are violating trade rules, they will use the
multilateral system of settling disputes instead of taking action
unilaterally.
The operation of the WTO dispute settlement process involves the
DSB panels, the Appellate Body, the WTO Secretariat, arbitrators,
independent experts and several specialized institutions.
Accession and membership
The process of becoming a WTO member is unique to each applicant
country, and the terms of accession are dependent upon the
country's stage of economic development and current trade regime.
The process takes about five years, on average, but it can last
more if the country is less than fully committed to the process or
if political issues interfere. As is typical of WTO procedures, an
offer of accession is only given once consensus is reached among
interested parties.
Accession process
Status of WTO negotiations:
A country wishing to accede to the WTO submits an application to
the General Council, and has to describe all aspects of its trade
and economic policies that have a bearing on WTO agreements. The
application is submitted to the WTO in a
memorandum which is examined by a working party
open to all interested WTO Members. After all necessary background
information has been acquired, the working party focuses on issues
of discrepancy between the WTO rules and the applicant's
international and domestic trade policies and laws. The working
party determines the terms and conditions of entry into the WTO for
the applicant nation, and may consider transitional periods to
allow countries some leeway in complying with the WTO rules. The
final phase of accession involves bilateral negotiations between
the applicant nation and other working party members regarding the
concessions and commitments on tariff levels and market access for
goods and services. The new member's commitments are to apply
equally to all WTO members under normal non-discrimination rules,
even though they are negotiated bilaterally.
When the bilateral talks conclude, the working party sends to the
general council or ministerial conference an accession package,
which includes a summary of all the working party meetings, the
Protocol of Accession (a draft membership treaty), and lists
("schedules") of the member-to-be's commitments. Once the general
council or ministerial conference approves of the terms of
accession, the applicant's parliament must ratify the Protocol of
Accession before it can become a member.
Members and observers
The WTO has 153 members (almost all of the 123 nations
participating in the Uruguay Round signed on at its foundation, and
the rest had to get membership). The 27 states of the
European Union are represented also as the
European Communities. WTO
members do not have to be full
sovereign
nation-members. Instead, they must be a customs territory with full
autonomy in the conduct of their external commercial relations.
Thus
Hong
Kong (as "Hong Kong, China" since 1997) became a GATT
contracting party, and the Republic of China 
(commonly known as Taiwan, whose sovereignty has
been disputed by the People's Republic of China) acceded to the WTO
in 2002 under the name of "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan,
Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" (Chinese
Taipei). A number of non-members (30) are observers at
WTO proceedings and are currently negotiating their membership.
As
observers, Iran
, Iraq
and Russia
are not yet
members. With the exception of the
Holy
See, observers must start accession negotiations within five
years of becoming observers. Some international intergovernmental
organizations are also granted observer status to WTO bodies. 14
states and 2 territories so far have no official interaction with
the WTO.
Agreements
The WTO oversees about 60 different agreements which have the
status of international legal texts. Member countries must sign and
ratify all WTO agreements on accession. A discussion of some of the
most important agreements follows.
Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)
The
Agreement on
Agriculture came into effect with the establishment of the WTO
at the beginning of 1995. The AoA has three central concepts, or
"pillars":
domestic support,
market access and
export subsidies.
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
The
General
Agreement on Trade in Services was created to extend the
multilateral trading system to
service sector, in the same way
the
General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system
for merchandise trade. The Agreement entered into force in January
1995
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement
(TRIPs)
The
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights sets down minimum standards for many forms of
intellectual property (IP) regulation.
It was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1994.
Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Agreement
The
Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary
Measures - also known as the SPS Agreement was negotiated
during the
Uruguay Round of the
General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the
establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995.
Under the SPS agreement, the WTO sets constraints on members'
policies relating to food safety (bacterial contaminants,
pesticides, inspection and labelling) as well as animal and plant
health (imported pests and diseases).
Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT)
The
Agreement
on Technical Barriers to Trade is an international
treaty of the World Trade Organization. It was
negotiated during the
Uruguay Round of
the
General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the
establishment of the WTO at the end of 1994.
The object ensures that technical negotiations and standards, as
well as testing and certification procedures, do not create
unnecessary obstacles to trade".
Criticism
The stated aim of the WTO is to promote
free
trade and stimulate economic growth. Critics argue that free
trade leads to a divergence instead of convergence of income levels
within rich and poor countries (the rich get richer and the poor
get poorer).
Martin Khor, Director of
the
Third World Network, argues
that the WTO does not manage the global economy impartially, but in
its operation has a systematic bias toward rich countries and
multinational corporations, harming smaller countries which have
less negotiation power. He argues that developing countries have
not benefited from the WTO agreements of the Uruguay Round because,
among other reasons, market access in industry has not improved;
these countries have had no gains yet from the phasing-out of
textile quotas; non-tariff barriers such as anti-dumping measures
have increased; and domestic support and export subsidies for
agricultural products in the rich countries remain high.
Jagdish Bhagwati asserts, however, that
there is greater tariff protection on manufacturers in the poor
countries, which are also overtaking the rich nations in the number
of
anti-dumping
filings.
Other critics claim that the issues of
labor relations and
environment are steadfastly ignored.
Steve Charnovitz, former director
of the Global Environment and Trade Study (GETS), believes that the
WTO "should begin to address the link between trade and labor and
environmental concerns." Further,
labor
unions condemn the
labor rights record of developing countries, arguing that, to
the extent the WTO succeeds at promoting
globalization, the environment and labor
rights suffer in equal measure. On the other side, Khor responds
that "if environment and labor were to enter the WTO system [...]
it would be conceptually difficult to argue why other social and
cultural issues should also not enter." Bhagwati is also critical
towards "rich-country lobbies seeking on imposing their unrelated
agendas on trade agreements." Therefore, both Bhagwati and
Arvind Panagariya of
Columbia University, have criticized the
introduction of TRIPs into the WTO framework, fearing that such
non-trade agendas might overwhelm the organization's function.J.
Bhagwati,
From Seattle to Hong Kong
* A. Panagariya,
TRIPs and the WTO
Other critics have characterized the
decision making in the WTO as complicated,
ineffective, unrepresentative and non-inclusive, and they have
proposed the establishment of a small, informal steering committee
(a "consultative board") that can be delegated responsibility for
developing consensus on trade issues among the member countries.R.
Blackhurst,
Reforming WTO Decision Making, 12
* Schott-Watal,
Decision-Making in the WTO The Third World Network has
called the WTO "the most non-transparent of international
organisations", because "the vast majority of developing countries
have very little real say in the WTO system"; the Network stresses
that "
civil society groups and
institutions must be given genuine opportunities to express their
views and to influence the outcome of policies and decisions."
Certain non-governmental organizations, such as the
World Federalist Movement, argue
that democratic participation in the WTO could be enhanced through
the creation of a
parliamentary
assembly, although other analysts have characterized this
proposal as ineffective.R.M Jennar,
A
"Consultative Parliamentary Assembly" to the WTO
*
Reform of the World Trade Organization and International
Financial Organizations, World Federalist Movement
*
Gregory Shaffer,
Parliamentary Oversight of WTO Rule-making: The Political,
Normative, and Practical Contexts, 7 J. Int'l L. 629
(2004).
Some libertarians and small-government conservatives, as well as
think tanks such as the
Ludwig von Mises Institute,
oppose the World Trade Organization, seeing it as a bureaucratic
and anti-capitalistic organization not promoting free trade, but
political interventionism. The chairman of the Ludwig von Mises
Institute,
Llewellyn H Rockwell Jr,
argued that
.
.
. the World Trade Organization says that the US
must stop permitting US exporters to set up foreign subsidiaries
that save as much as 30 percent in taxes they would otherwise
pay.
Now the US must either raise taxes by eliminating
loopholes or face massive new sanctions that will seriously harm
our export sector.
[...] There's been a lot of talk recently about
foreigners who hate our prosperity and civilization, and seek ways
to inflict violence in retaliation.
Well, here's another case in point, except these
are not swarthy Islamic terrorists; they are diplomats and
statesmen on nobody's list of suspicious
characters.
See also
References and notes
- Understanding the WTO - what is the World Trade
Organization?, World Trade Organization
- European Commission The Doha Round
- Members and Observers WTO official site
- P. van den Bossche, The Law and Policy of the World Trade
Organization, 80
- Palmeter-Mavroidis, Dispute Settlement, 2
- It was contemplated that the GATT would be applied for several
years until the ITO came into force. However, since the ITO was
never brought into being, the GATT gradually became the focus for
international governmental cooperation on trade matters (P. van den
Bossche, The Law and Policy of the World Trade
Organization, 81; J.H. Jackson, Managing the Trading
System, 134).
- The GATT Years: from Havana to Marrakesh, World
Trade Organization
- M.E. Footer, Analysis of the World Trade Organization,
17
- B.S. Klapper, With a "Short Window"
- Lula, Time to Get Serious about Agricultural Subsidies
- P. Gallagher, The First Ten Years of the WTO, 4
- The Uruguay Round, World Trade
Organization
- http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/04-wto_e.htm
- Overview: a Navigational Guide, World Trade
Organization. For the complete list of "The Uruguay Round
Agreements", see WTO legal texts, World Trade Organization, and
Uruguay Round Agreements, Understandings, Decisions and
Declarations, WorldTradeLaw.net
- Five Years of China WTO Membership. EU and US Perspectives
about China's Compliance with Transparency Commitments and the
Transitional Review Mechanism
- WTO to hold 7th Ministerial Conference on 30
November-2 December 2009 WTO official website
- The Economist, In the twilight of Doha, 65
- The Doha Development Agenda, European
Commission
- Functions of the WTO, IISD
- Main Functions, World Trade Organization
- A Bredimas, International Economic Law, II, 17
- C. Deere, Decision-making in the WTO: Medieval or
Up-to-Date?
- WTO Assistance for Developing Countries, World
Trade Organization
- Economic research and analysis, World Trade
Organization
- B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles,
42
- Principles of the Trading System, World Trade
Organization
- B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles,
43
- B. Hoekman, The WTO: Functions and Basic Principles,
44
- Intellectual property - overview of TRIPS
Agreement
- Steinberg, Richard H. "In the Shadow of Law or Power?
Consensus-based Bargaining and Outcomes in the GATT/WTO."
International Organization. Spring 2002. pp. 339-374.
- Stewart-Dawyer, The WTO Dispute Settlement System,
7
- S. Panitchpakdi, The WTO at ten, 8.
- Settling Disputes:a Unique Contribution, World
Trade Organization
- WTO Bodies involved in the dispute settlement
process, World Trade Organization
- Accessions Summary, Center for International
Development
- The shortest accession negotiation was that of the
Kyrgyz
Republic, while the longest was that of the People's Republic of China (P.
Farah, Five Years of China's WTO Membership, 263-304).
Russia, having first
applied to join GATT in 1993, is still in negotiations for
membership. Recently, it secured a bilateral trade agreement with
the EU and US ( Accessions: Russian Federation, World Trade
Organization; Factsheet on U.S. – Russia WTO Bilateral Market
Access Agreement, Office of the United Stated Trade
Representative; Russia - WTO: EU-Russia Deal Brings Russia a Step
Closer to WTO Membership, European Commission). Moldova and Georgia are the
remaining two nations that Russia must make agreements with to
enter the WTO (A. Aslund, Russia's WTO Accession; V. Novostei, USA OKs Russia’s Entry into WTO, Pravda. Ru).
- C. Michalopoulos, WTO Accession, 64
- Membership, Alliances and Bureaucracy, World
Trade Organization
- C. Michalopoulos, WTO Accession, 62-63
- How to Become a Member of the WTO, World Trade
Organization
- For an updated list of WTO members, see Members and Observers, World Trade
Organization
- J.H. Jackson, Sovereignty, 109
- International Intergovernmental Organizations
Granted Observer Status to WTO Bodies, World Trade
Organization
- http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm
- A Summary of the Final Act of the Uruguay
Round
- M. Khor, Rethinking Liberalization and Reforming the WTO
- J. Bhagwati, Reshaping the WTO, 26
- S. Charnovitz, Addressing Environmental and Labor Issues in the
WTO
- K.C. Kennedy, The World Trade Organization, 46
- Khor M, How the South is getting a Raw Deal at the WTO
in Anderson A (ed) Views from the South: The Effects of
Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries International Forum
on Globalisation (IFG) 1998
- J. Bhagwati, Reshaping the WTO, 28
- Transparency, Participation and Legitimacy of the WTO,
Third World Network
- Rockwell J H Jr. WTO Foments A Trade War 21 January 2002
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