Historical

Background
 Historical Background

1944 Bretton
Woods
Conference

International
World Bank
IMF Trade
(IBRD)
Organisation

GATT
 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

• General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade (GATT) was a multilateral
agreement aimed at the abolition
of quotas and the reduction
of tariff duties among the
contracting nations.
• GATT was signed in 1947 by 23 major

trading nations, including India and went

to more than 64 before WTO came.

• It was a contractual agreement among

parties (or nations).

 Objectives of GATT

¨ Expansion of international trade

¨ Increase of world production by ensuring full employment in the

participating nations

¨ Development and full utilization of world resources, and

¨ Raising standard of living of the world community as a whole.

¨ To settle the disputes through consultation within the framework of

GATT.
Defects of GATT

• No Enforcement Authority
• Problems in the Formulation of General Rules
• Less Benefits for the LDC’s
• Quantitative Trade Restrictions
Difference between the GATT and the WTO
 • GATT became only one of the three major trade

agreements that went into the WTO; the other

two being the General Agreement on Trade in

WTO and GATT
Services (GATS) and the agreements on Trade

Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

(TRIPS).

• The WTO, by contrast, is a fully fledged institution.

 World Trade Organization
(WTO)

• An organization for trade opening.

• A forum for governments to negotiate

trade agreements.

• A place for them to settle trade

disputes.

• It operates a system of trade rules.

 The WTO was born out of negotiations.
The bulk of the WTO’s current work comes from the
1986–94 negotiations called the Uruguay Round and
earlier negotiations under the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
The WTO is currently the host to new negotiations,
under the ‘Doha Development Agenda’ launched in
2001.
 Functions of WTO

• Forum for trade negotiations

• Implementing and Monitoring

• Dispute settlement

• Building trade capacity

• Outreach and Technical assistance

• Cooperation with other international organizations

 Roberto Azevêdo stepped down as WTO
Director-General on 31 August 2020, a year
before the expiry of his mandate.
 Objectives of WTO

• To help trade flow as freely as possible.

• To achieve further liberalization gradually through negotiations.

• To set up impartial means of settling disputes.

• Forum for trade negotiations

• Handling trade disputes

• Monitoring national trade policies

• Technical assistance and training for developing countries

• Cooperation with other international organizations

WTO: AGREEMENTS & POLICIES

Goods
• It all began with trade in goods. From 1947 to 1994, GATT was
the forum for negotiating lower customs duty rates and other
trade barriers

Services
• These principles appear in the new General Agreement on
Trade in Services (GATS).

Intellectual property
• The WTO’s intellectual property agreement amounts to rules
for trade and investment in ideas and creativity.

Dispute settlement
The system encourages countries to settle their differences
through consultation.
 GATS: General Agreement on Trade in Services

• General Agreement on Trade in Services is the

first and the only comprehensive multilateral
discipline covering international trade in
Services.
• WTO services are divided into 12 areas and sub
divided into 164 areas:
• Business Services, Communication Services,
Construction and Engineering Services,
Distribution Services, Education Services,
Environmental, Services, Financial Services,
Health Services, Tourism and travel Services,
Recreation, cultural and sporting Services,
Transport Services.
 TRIPS

• It is the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property.

• It deals with the protection & enforcement of “Trade-Related” intellectual property
“rights".

• DEALS IN:
• How to give adequate protection to intellectual property rights
• How countries should enforce those rights adequately in their own territories
• How to settle disputes on intellectual property between members of the WTO
• Special transitional arrangements during the period when the new system is being
introduced.
 POSITIVE IMPACT ON INDIAN ECONOMY

• Increase in export earnings

• Agricultural exports

• Export of textile and clothing

• Multilateral rules and discipline

• Growth to service exports

• Foreign investment
• The WTO agreements cover
goods, services and
intellectual property.
• They set procedures for
settling disputes.
• WTO deals with the special
needs of developing
countries as two thirds of
the WTO members are
developing countries and
they play an increasingly
important and active role