The
World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to
supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization
officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement,
replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which
commenced in 1948.
The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating
countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade
agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing
participant's adherence to WTO agreements, which are signed by
representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments.
Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade
negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).
The
organization is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha
Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on
addressing the needs of developing countries. As of June 2012, the
future of the Doha Round remained uncertain: the work programme lists 21
subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed,
and the round is still incomplete.
The conflict between free trade on industrial goods and services but
retention of protectionism on farm subsidies to domestic agricultural
sector (requested by developed countries) and the substantiation of the
international liberalization of fair trade on agricultural products
(requested by developing countries) remain the major obstacles. These
points of contention have hindered any progress to launch new WTO
negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result of this
impasse, there has been an increasing number of bilateral free trade
agreements signed.
As of July 2012, there were various negotiation groups in the WTO
system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the
condition of stalemate.
WTO's current Director-General is Roberto Azevêdo, who leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, Switzerland.
A trade facilitation agreement known as the Bali Package was reached by
all members on 7 December 2013, the first comprehensive agreement in
the organization's history.
