WTO

**The World Trade Organization is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is a really important negotiating forum with principles and purposes that affect the world trade.TheWorld Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules governing trade between countries. WTO agreements have been negotiated andsigned bymostcountries participating inworld trade. In other words, the World Trade Organization deals with the rules of trade between countries at almost worldwide. It also helps with the disputes between the members. ** **The principles of this organization are: Non discrimination, reciprocity, transparency and special and differential treatment. ** **The purpose of the World Trade Organization is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business in the best way. To accomplishthis objective, the WTO is responsible for: ** ** __History __ ** **The WTO comes from the Uruguay Round and earlier negotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The World Trade Organization is under the “Doha Development Agenda”. ** **This organization was born on 1 January 1995 but the trading system is much older because since 1948 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had provided the rules for this system. The GATT is a multilateral agreement, created in the Havana Conferencein 1947, signed in 1948 bythe need to establisha set oftrade rules and tariffs, and is considered the precursor of the World Trade Organization. The GATT was part of the plan for regulating the world economy after World War II, including the reduction of tariff sand other barriers to international trade. The functioning of the GATT is based on regular meetings of member states, these negotiations are about reducing tariffs, according to the principle of reciprocity. Negotiations remember to member and product to product, by submitting requests accompanied by appropriate offerings. These negotiations are known as rounds and the most important was The Uruguay Round. ** **The Uruguay Round took seven and a half years from 1986 to 1994. This round brought the biggest reform of the world’s trading system was the most ambitious because it covered almost all trade; it was the largest negotiation in the history and goes from services, intellectual property, textiles, and agriculture to banking and telecommunications. Themost important point touched talked about the transformation of GATT into the WTO. ** **From 2000 to 2001 were incorporated more agreements of agriculture and services into The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) that was another Round of negotiations but now of the WTO. ** **Although the WTO replaced GATT as an international organization, the General Agreement remainsas the base (current) of the WTO on trade in goods, that as a result of the Uruguay Round. **  ** __Structure __ ** **The WTO is an organization managed by member countries in where decisions are taken by consensus between the governments of all countries. There are decisions that are made by the membership as a whole, either by ministers (They have to meet at least once every two years) or by their ambassadors that meet in Geneva regularly. The levels of the WTO are: ** **There is also: ** ** v The Secretariat (represented by the director general). ** **  v The director general who has many responsibilities in the organization. **  ** __Criticism __ ** **The WTO has been widely criticized since its creation, basically because the organization is supposed to promote free trade and stimulate economic growth but people do not approve the actions and the methods of the WTO. ** **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">There are a lot of things that "The World Terrorists Organization", as some call, mishandled and we see that in facts like the rich countries are able to maintain high import duties and quotas in certain products blocking imports from developing countries, the TRIPs agreements that defines how products can be protected from piracy is causing international tension because it limits developing countries from utilizing some technology that originates from abroad in their local systems, the fact that developing countries do not have the maintenance of high protection of agriculture and this countries that are not developed do not have the capacity to follow the negotiations and participate actively. ** **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Other criticisms are by the way decisions are made. The decision making in the WTO has broken down because only the more active participants are taking the decisions disrespecting the consensus. ** **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Also, the protests against the World Trade Organization have been enormous, and even violent. **
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION __ **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Managetrade agreements. **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Provide a forum fortrade negotiations. **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Resolve trade disputes. **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Examine the national policies of trade. **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Help developing countries with trade policy issues, through technical assistance and training programs. **
 * **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Cooperate withother international organizations. **
 * 1) **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The highest authority is the Ministerial Conference. **
 * 2) **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The General Council in three bodies represents the second level. **
 * 3) **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The third level are councils for each broad area of trade. **
 * 4) **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #00afff; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">The fourth level is represented by the subsidiary bodies of the WTO. **