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World Trade Organisation (WTO) Overview

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.

Membership of WTO

Although the UK is a member of the WTO in its own right, for all practical purposes we work through our membership of the European Union (EU), as required by the Common Commercial Policy of the European Community (EC). The most recent comprehensive statement of EU policy can be found at the EU Commission website.

As of 11 December 2005  the WTO had 149 member countries with others countries waiting to accede. Further details including the criteria countries must meet before they can become full members can be found on both the DTI's WTO Accession web page and WTO website.

Principles

The key principle  of the World Trade Organisation is non-discrimination, ensuring that products from different countries are treated the same way.The WTO is a member-driven organisation which works on a consensus basis, ensuring that all Members have an equal voice.

As an international organisation it has a sound legal basis with all WTO members being accountable, having ratified the WTO Agreements. These agreements are contracts, guaranteeing member countries important trade rights. They also bind governments to keep their trade policies within agreed limits to everybody’s benefit.

Functions

As well as acting as a forum for trade negotiations, the WTO provides an arbitration service for countries embroiled in trade disputes.

History

In 1995, the WTO was established to succeed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT was formed in 1948 as a ‘provisional’ instrument initially intended to pave the way to an International Trade Organisation (ITO). However, the Havana Charter, which would have established the ITO, was never ratified and the GATT remained the only multilateral instrument governing international trade.

An informal organisation was built around the GATT to discuss trade-related issues and negotiate further liberalisation. Taking place in ‘rounds’, these negotiations at first concentrated on lowering tariffs before moving on to additional issues such as subsidies, anti-dumping and non-tariff measures.

The eighth trade round - the Uruguay Round - ran from 1986-94 and was the most extensive of all, covering trade in goods, services, and intellectual property and establishing the WTO as a permanent organisation.

Doha Development Agenda

The current round of negotiations, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) began in 2001. This includes negotiations on agriculture, Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), trade and environment, trade facilitation, services and Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries addressing, for example, the difficulties they face in implementing WTO agreements. For more details see related links.

Contact:

Eoin Parker

Tel: 0207 215 6012
Fax: 0207 215 2235
Email: Eoin.Parker@berr.gov.uk