The World Trade Organization Where It’s Been and Where’s It’s Going?

The World Trade Organization Where It’s Been and Where’s It’s Going?

Since the start of trade in the United States and around the world there has always been a need for rules and regulations. The GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) was the one for the past century that dealt with issues that would arise they wrote rules on things that were acceptable and not acceptable in the trade arena. Out of the GATT came the World Trade Organization (WTO) that was designed to take care of more issues than GATT. Although the WTO has only been around for almost a decade it has come under criticism from almost all arenas. They have had issues brought to their table that have been hard decisions and now have issues they must deal with that could affect the way free trade is in the future. Countries have battled amongst each other as how to solve a problem such as The Beef Hormone Case, The Shrimp Turtle case and the Caribbean Banana Case. These were case that will be discussed later, but have set a kind of foundation for the WTO as to where they will be headed in the future. Agriculture has become a hot issue in the international market and the WTO is still trying to find ways to accommodate the developed countries and develop further growth in the developing nations. The World Trade Organization is also stepping into new territory and the future is no exception.

The World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization was developed in 1995 out of what was known as the Uruguay Round. Although GATT set rules they mostly dealt with issues just involving simple trade of goods and the distribution of tariffs. The WTO has a more broad job than the GATT; “…it oversees multilateral agreements relating not just to good, but...

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... the job that they were made to do under the GATT regulations. The future will tell a lot about the WTO and free trade because so many things are brought to the table that eventually the World Trade Organization is going to need some form of help to make adequate decisions for the world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Diao, Xinshen, Terry Roe and Agapi Somwaru. “Developing Country Interests in Agricultural Reforms Under the World Trade Organization.” American Journal of Economics v.84, n3 (August 2002): 782-90

Irwin, Douglas. Free Trade Under Fire. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University

Press, 2002.

Josling, Tim. “Key Issues in the World Trade Organization Negotiations on Agriculture.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics v.85, n3 (August 2003): 663-667

Working Group on the WTO/MAI. “A Citizen’s Guide to the World Trade Organization” (July 1999): 1-28