How the World Trade Organization (WTO) manages international business law?

Résumé du document

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a commercial organization that plans to liberalize trade worldwide. This organization was started on 1st January, 1995, just after the Marrakech Agreement. It replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT was signed in 1947 and was a “multilateral” agreement in order both to regulate international trade and to obtain free trade reducing trade barriers, mainly tariffs. That's why all the members have to be organized and participate in eight rounds of negotiations.


The seven first rounds (from Annecy to Tokyo: 1947-1986) are focused on reducing tariffs. The eighth named Uruguay Round (1986-1994) was the biggest trade negotiation ever known. All the members had decided to reduce once again trade barriers (tariffs) but also extend the organization and the trade system to new fields such as:
-Services (General Agreement on Trade in Services)
-Intellectual Property (Agreement on Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights – TRIPS)
-Dispute settlement
-Textile

For example, the negotiation had led to full and open access for clothing from developing countries. This led to the creation of the WTO, and the adoption of a new set of agreements. WTO had launched a new round of negotiation called the Doha Round in 2001 . It intended to help poor countries in reducing trade barriers and provide subsidies in farming. However, the negotiations have not been finished yet because there are disagreements on several areas like the agriculture and right balance between trade and environmental conservation. This Doha Round is not yet concluded.

Extraits

[...] Simplify trade through the WTO basic principles If companies want to import raw materials in order to lower their production costs, without the help of the World Trade Organization and its basic principles (non-discrimination, for instance), this would be very complicated. Indeed, firms would have to compare every customs rates of each country, in order to select the cheaper supplier they can get, and also to study all the regulations and restrictions applicable in the country they want to export. [...]

[...] How the World Trade Organization (WTO) manages international business law? Table of contents Introduction First of all, we are going to examine the main elements which composed the WTO, I mean that we will analyze the organization from the past to nowadays going through its history, its structure, its objectives and finally its principles. Then, we will try to understand the several advantages of such trading system implemented by the WTO to obtain free trade and economic growth worldwide. Finally, we will study the limits and the possible drawbacks of the WTO. [...]

[...] It should always ask itself if the law or regulation it is going to implement will respect what the international organization noted. Thus, the scope of each government is quite limited when there is the question of trade. These sets of law must benefit directly to the international trade, and not on the national side. Protecting a particular sector of the industry might not be viewed as intense protectionism by the country, but the WTO, which wants to eliminate the concept, might not be on the same page. [...]

[...] Indeed, the organization wants to attract developing countries as much as possible to make part of WTO. That is the reason why these countries have a longer period of time to adapt to the rules, have a greater flexibility and get special privileges (e.g. technical assistance). d. Structure of WTO The structure of the WTO includes the following bodies: ( The Ministerial Conference It is at the top of the structure because it's the highest authority. This body is composed of representatives of all members and meets at least once every two years. [...]

[...] However, the WTO specifically stated that if trade barriers are reintroduced, it should be as a consequence of an environmental issue, and not a ‘fake' one. Investments: Before this agreement, the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs), there was not a real one about investments on the services field. Indeed, the GATT was only focusing on trade of goods. The idea was that in order to develop their activities, companies need investments. Yet, investments are more and more done through the way of FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments). [...]