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World Trade Organization: Countries
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The World Trade Organization ruled in 2004 and 2005 that U.S. laws discriminated against foreign competitors, in violation of global trade rules and the United States' own ratified commitments to the W.T.O. This year, after failing to comply with a W.T.O. ruling that U.S. laws be reformed, the United States announced it would withdraw those commitments, entitling W.T.O. member countries to fair compensation for the lost market access. The closure of the $100 billion U.S. gaming market had financial ramifications far beyond the gaming industry itself, wiping out billions of dollars from the balance sheets of European institutional investors, pension funds, and financial services companies as well as affecting the many supplier industry sectors to the gaming industry.
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On 31 July 2004, the World Trade Organization ended a week of intense talks with agreement on how to proceed with its Doha negotiations... avoiding another Cancun-like failure. There were some gains for developing countries, but the negative aspects outweighed the gains.
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[A]t the strategically critical World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Brazil is leading the charge to weaken intellectual property rights within the World Trade Organization. This week, a second session on "a development agenda" for the WIPO was underway. This meeting is a follow-up to the April WIPO session in which the "Group of Friends of Development," led by Brazil, spelled out its objection to intellectual property rights as traditionally defined. The 14 countries in this euphemistically titled alliance include such paragons of sound economic development policy as Iran, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Sierra Leone.
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International organization based in Geneva that supervises world trade. It was created in 1995 to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Like its predecessor, it aims to lower trade barriers and encourage multilateral trade. It monitors members' adherence to GATT agreements and negotiates and implements new agreements. Critics of the WTO, including many opponents of economic globalization, have charged that it undermines national sovereignty by promoting the interests of large multinational corporations and that the trade liberalization it encourages leads to environmental damage and declining living standards for low-skilled workers in developing countries. By the early 21st century, the WTO had more than 145 members.
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Trade is not a panacea for the political, economic and social problems of the world. But it is a force for peace and cross-cultural contact. Countries are less likely to go to war against their trading partners than they are against strangers. The WTO furthers the process of protecting against commercial skirmishes and potential trade wars by forging agreement among nations on trade protocols.
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The World Trade Organization describes itself as a forum for free trading principles. This is the theory. But in practice, its operating procedures, which allow subsidies to be provided to producers, and which allow tariffs to be imposed on imports, give an unfair advantage to the manufacturer in developed countries and make sure that the producers in developing countries are kept out of the markets and held down.
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