WTO
- STRUCTURE, AIMS AND
PRINCIPLES
Made by:
Schendigina
Ekaterina
Check by:
Tarasenko Dana Gennadivna
- 2.Objectives,
main functions, principles
- Location:Geneva, Switzerland
Established:1 January 1995
Created by: Uruguay Round negotiations (1986-94)
Membership: 153 countries on 23 July 2008
Budget: 196 million Swiss francs
for 2011
Secretariat staff: 640
Head: Pascal Lamy (Director-General)
- Functions:
• Administering
WTO trade agreements
• Forum
for trade negotiations
• Handling
trade disputes
• Monitoring
national trade policies
• Technical
assistance and training for developing countries
• Cooperation
with other international organizations
- Principles:
- WTO establishes
the following key principles, which occur in all agreements under
the umbrella of WTO. These are:
- ·
Trade without discrimination: 1) Most-favored-nation treatment, 2) National
treatment;
- ·
Transparency
- ·
Predictable and growing access to markets
- ·
Single undertaking
- 3. Organization
structure
- Highest Authority:
the Ministerial Conference
- Ministerial Conference
is the supreme body of the WTO, composed of representatives of all Members.
The Ministerial Conference is authorized to carry out the functions
of the WTO, take the actions necessary to this effect, and take decisions
on matters under any of the Multilateral Trade Agreements if so requested
by a Member. The Ministerial Conference is to meet at least once every
two years. The first WTO Ministerial Conference was held in Singapore
in December, 1996 (the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information
Technology Products), the second in Geneva in May, 1998 (Declaration
on Global Electronic Commerce), the Third in Seattle, Washington State,
US between 30 November and 3 December 1999, and the Fourth in Doha,
Qatar from 9 to 13 November 2001.
- Second Level:
General Council
- General Council,
also composed of representatives of all WTO members, is in charge of
the daily business of the WTO and normally meets once every two months.
General Council acts on behalf of the Ministerial Conference in the
periods between its meetings, and reports directly to it. The General
Council convenes also as the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) and the Trade
Policy Review Body (TPRB).
- Third Level:
Councils for each broad area of trade, namely, the Council for Trade
in Goods (Goods Council), the Council for Trade in Services (Services
Council), the Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPs Council). The three councils, consisting of all WTO members,
deal with their respective areas of trade.
- Six committees,
also consisting of all WTO members, report to the General Council for
different issues such as trade and development, the environment, regional
trading arrangements, and administrative issues.
- Fourth Level:
Committees and working party dealing with specific subjects
- The Goods Council
has 11 committees. They consist of all WTO members. The Textiles Monitoring
Body also reports to the Goods Council.
- The WTO
Secretariat: In Article VI of the WTO
Agreement, provision is made for the establishment
of a Secretariat and the appointment of
its Director-General. At present it has
approximately five hundred staff members. The
Secretariat, based in Geneva, Switzerland,
has no decision-making powers. Its main
duties are to supply technical and professional
support for the various councils and committees,
to provide technical assistance for developing
countries, to monitor and analyze developments
in world trade, to provide information
to the public and the media and to
organize the ministerial conferences. It also
provides some forms of legal assistance
in the dispute settlement process and
advises governments wishing to become Members
of the WTO. The WTO Secretariat is
organized into 24 Divisions with functional,
information and liaison, and support roles.
Divisions are normally headed by a Director
who reports to a Deputy-Director General
or directly to the Director General. The
professional staff is composed mostly of
economists, lawyers and others with a
specialization in international trade policy.
The working languages of the WTO are
English, French and Spanish.
- 5. Trade
policy review mechanism (TPRM)
of the WTO
- TPRM was introduced
into GATT in 1989 following the Mid-term Review of the Uruguay. The
review covers the full range of individual Members' trade policies and
practices and their impact on the functioning of the multilateral trading
system in order to encourage governments to follow closely the WTO rules
and disciplines and to fulfill their commitments.
- The TPRB is formally
the General Council. The frequency of reviews of a Member is related
to its weight in the multilateral trading system, as defined by the
Member's share of world trade in goods and services. On this principle,
the frequency of review for individual Members, based on trade flows
in October 1995, is as follows:
- ·
every four years for the four largest trading entities, counting the
European Communities (as one trading entity), the US, Japan and Canada;
- ·
every four years for the next sixteen Members;
- ·
every six years for other Members, with provision for a longer interval
for least-developed countries.
- Procedures for
Review:
- A
TPRM review consists of several steps
whose timing is agreed between the
Secretariat and the country under review
- 6.Plurilateral
trade agreements of
the WTO
- For the most
part, all WTO members subscribe to all WTO agreements. There remain,
however, two agreements, originally negotiated in the Tokyo Round, which
have a narrower group of signatories and are known as “plurilateral agreements”. All other
Tokyo Round agreements became multilateral obligations when the WTO
was established in 1995. The two are:
- 1) Agreement
on Trade in Civil Aircraft
- 2) Agreement
on Government Procurement
- The other two
plurilateral agreements, namely, International Dairy Agreement and International
Bovine Meat Agreement, were scrapped at the end of 1997 and incorporated
into the Agriculture and Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreements.
- 7. Main
difference between the
WTO and GATT
The General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) covers international
trade in goods. The workings of the
GATT agreement are the responsibility of
the Council for Trade in Goods (Goods
Council) which is made up of representatives
from all WTO member countries.
- The WTO and its
agreements are permanent. The WTO has a legal man status.
- The GATT rules
applied to trade in goods. The WTO Agreement covers trade in goods,
trade in services and trade-related aspects of intellectual property
rights.
- Approach: Though
the GATT was a multilateral instrument, a series of new agreements were
adopted during the Tokyo Round on a plurilateral - that is, selective-basis,
causing a fragmentation of the multilateral trading system. The WTO
has been adopted and accepted by its members, as a single undertaking:
the agreements are all multilateral.