World trade organisation

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• Administering trade agreements

• Acting as a forum for trade negotiations

• Settling trade disputes

• Reviewing national trade policies

• Assisting developing countries in trade policy issues, through technical assistance and training programs

• Cooperating with other international organizations

STRUCTURE

The WTO has more than 130 members, accounting for over 90% of world trade. Over 30 others are negotiating membership. Decisions are made by the entire membership. This is typically by consensus. A majority vote is also possible but it has never been used in the WTO, and was extremely rare under the WTO’s predecessor, GATT. The WTO’s agreements have been ratified in all members’ parliaments. The WTO’s top level decision-making body is the Ministerial Conference which meets at least once every two years. Below this is the General Council (normally ambassadors and heads of delegation in Geneva, but sometimes officials sent from members’ capitals) which meets several times a year in the Geneva headquarters. The General Council also meets as the Trade Policy Review Body and the Dispute Settlement Body. At the next level, the Goods Council, Services Council and Intellectual
Property (TRIPS) Council report to the General Council. Numerous specialized committees, working groups and working parties deal with the individual agreements and other areas such as the environment, development, membership applications and regional trade agreements. The first
Ministerial Conference in Singapore in 1996 added three new working groups to this structure. They deal with the relationship between trade and investment, the interaction between trade and competition policy and transparency in government procurement. At the second Ministerial
Conference in Geneva in 1998 ministers decided that the WTO would also study the area of electronic commerce, a task to be shared out among existing councils and committees.

SECRETARIAT

The WTO Secretariat, based in Geneva, has around 500 staff and is headed by a director-general. It does not have branch offices outside
Geneva. Since decisions are taken by the members themselves, the
Secretariat does not have the decision-making role that other international bureaucracies are given. The Secretariat’s main duties are to supply technical support for the various councils and committees and the ministerial conferences, to provide technical assistance for developing countries, to analyze world trade, and to explain WTO affairs to the public and media.

The Secretariat also provides some forms of legal assistance in the dispute settlement process and advises governments wishing to become members of the WTO.

The annual budget is roughly 122 million Swiss francs. How can you ensure that trade is as fair as possible, and as free as is practical? By negotiating rules and abiding by them. The WTO’s rules—the agreements—are the result of negotiations between the members. The current set were the outcome of the 1986–94 Uruguay Round negotiations which included a major revision of the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
GATT is now the WTO’s principal rule-book for trade in goods. The Uruguay
Round also created new rules for dealing with trade in services, relevant aspects of intellectual property, dispute settlement, and trade policy reviews. The complete set runs to some 30,000 pages consisting of about 60 agreements and separate commitments (called schedules) made by individual members in specific areas such as lower customs duty rates and services market-opening. Through these agreements, WTO members operate a non- discriminatory trading system that spells out their rights and their obligations. Each country receives guarantees that its exports will be treated fairly and consistently in other. These principles appear in the new General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). WTO members have also made individual commitments under GATS stating which of their services sectors they are willing to open to foreign competition, and how open those markets are. countries’ markets. Each promises to do the same for imports into its own market. The system also gives developing countries some flexibility in implementing their commitments.

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; the text of General Agreement spelt out important rules, particularly non- discrimination. Since 1995, the updated GATT has become the WTO’s umbrella agreement for trade in goods. It has annexes dealing with specific sectors such as agriculture and textiles, and with specific issues such as state trading, product standards, subsidies and actions taken against dumping.

SERVICES

Banks, insurance firms, telecommunications companies, tour operators, hotel chains and transport companies looking to do business abroad can now enjoy the same principles of freer and fairer trade that originally only applied to trade in goods.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The WTO’s intellectual property agreement amounts to rules for trade and investment in ideas and creativity. The rules state how copyrights, trademarks, geographical names used to identify products, industrial designs, integrated circuit layout-designs and undisclosed information such as trade secrets—“intellectual property”—should be protected when trade is involved.

DISPUTE SETTLEMENT

The WTO’s procedure for resolving trade quarrels under the Dispute
Settlement Understanding is vital for enforcing the rules and therefore for ensuring that trade flows smoothly. Countries bring disputes to the WTO if they think their rights under the agreements are being infringed. Judgments by specially-appointed independent experts are based on interpretations of the agreements and individual countries’ commitments. The system encourages countries to settle their differences through consultation. Failing that, they can follow a carefully mapped out, stage-by-stage procedure that includes the possibility of a ruling by a panel of experts, and the chance to appeal the ruling on legal grounds. Confidence in the system is borne out by the number of cases brought to the WTO—167 cases by March 1999 compared to some 300 disputes dealt with during the entire life of GATT
(1947–94).

POLICY REVIEW

The Trade Policy Review Mechanism’s purpose is to improve transparency, to create a greater understanding of the policies that countries are adopting, and to assess their impact. Many members also see the reviews as constructive feedback on their policies. All WTO members must undergo periodic scrutiny, each review containing reports by the country concerned and the WTO Secretariat. Over 54 members have been reviewed since the WTO came into force.

DEVELOPMENT AND TRADE

Over three quarters of WTO members are developing or least-developed countries. Special provisions for these members are included in all the WTO agreements. They include longer time periods for implementing agreements and commitments, measures to increase trading opportunities for these countries, provisions requiring all WTO members to safeguard the trade interests of developing countries, and support to help developing countries build the infrastructure for WTO work, handle disputes, and implement technical standards. In 1997, a high-level meeting on trade initiatives and technical assistance for least-developed countries brought their concerns to centre stage. The meeting involved six intergovernmental agencies and resulted in an “integrated framework” to help least-developed countries increase their ability to trade, and some additional preferential market access agreements. A committee on trade and development, assisted by a sub- committee on least-developed countries, looks at developing countries’ special needs. Its responsibility includes implementation of the agreements, technical cooperation, and the increased participation of developing countries in the global trading system

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING