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World Trade Organization: Wto Agreements
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Trying to bring order to a disorganized world, the World Trade Organization (WTO) works to facilitate international trade. Its member countries negotiate and sign agreements hammered out in the WTO forum. The WTO administers the agreements, handles trade disputes, monitors national trade policies, provides technical assistance and training for developing countries, and cooperates with other international organizations. The organization derives most of its operating income from member contributions. Each member's contribution is calculated with a formula that takes into account that member's share of international trade. As a group, the 151 members contributed $180.5 million to the WTO budget in 2007.
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World Trade Organization - (WTO), international organization established in 1995 as a result of the final round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations, called the Uruguay Round. The WTO is responsible for monitoring national trading policies, handling trade disputes, and enforcing the GATT agreements, which are designed to reduce tariffs and other barriers to international trade and to eliminate discriminatory treatment in international commerce. In an effort to promote international agreements, WTO negotiations are conducted in closed sessions; many outsiders have strongly criticized such meetings as antidemocratic. Unlike GATT, the WTO is a permanent body but not a specialized agency of the United Nations; it has far greater power to mediate trade disputes between member countries and assess penalties. In the Uruguay Round, agreement was reached to reduce tariffs on manufactured goods by one third. Under the WTO, subsidies and quotas are to be reduced on imported farm products, automobiles, and textiles, which were not covered by GATT; there is ... freer trade in banking and other services and greater worldwide protection of intellectual property.
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Currently, there is some debate over whether the World Trade Organization, or WTO, should consider issues like labor standards and the environment when it makes decisions on trade. Some say the WTO should consider these issues because they are closely related to trade, and good decisions can be made only if all these things are taken into account. Others say the WTO should not consider these issues because its job is to deal only with trade, and trying to bring in these other concerns will interfere with the growth of trade. What about you? Do you think the WTO should or should not consider labor standards and the environment when it makes decisions about trade?
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The World Trade Organization (WTO), established on January 1, 1995, is a multilateral institution charged with administering rules for trade among member countries. Currently, there are 145 official member countries. The United States and other countries participating in the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (1986-1994) called for the formation of the WTO to embody the new trade disciplines adopted during those negotiations.
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The World Trade Organization is the foundation of international trade law. While there has been a flourishing of regional and bilateral agreements concluded in the past decade, all of these operate from the basic platform of WTO law as a starting point. IISD's Trade Program has focused much attention on the WTO, and how it might be made more responsive to the challenges posed by a concern for sustainable development.
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The World Trade Organization is the first truly world wide trade organization. It has supplanted the GATT accords and completely overshadows the ineffectual trade regulation attempts of the United Nations. Although highly politicized, the WTO is the closest thing to a democratic international organization that the nations of the world have ever seen. It lacks even the "permanent member" caveats of the United Nations Security Council. If the WTO can avoid the attempts to polarize it into a "developed nations" versus "developing nations" forum and the perception that it seeks to establish economic hegemony by undermining the sovereignty of its member nations, it has the potential to play a pivotal role in the advancement of the human condition.
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Wto Agreements