Began in 1986 in Uruguay, so it is sometimes called the Uruguay round

Concluded with an agreement 8 years later in 1994.

Agreement signed in Marrakech, Morocco

Agriculture was included for the first time in an international trade agreement

WTO created in 1995 as one result of the negotiations

GATT becomes WTO (1995) 1. Acts as a forum for trade negotiations 2. Administers trade agreements 1. Settles trade disputes 2. Reviews national trade policies 3. Assists developing countries (technical

assistance and training programmes) 4. Cooperates with other international

organisations

Ministerial Conference

General Council› Dispute Settlement Body › Trade Policy Review Body

Councils› Council for Trade in Goods› Council for Trade in Services› Council for TRIPs

Committees and other subsidiary bodies

Decision-making

Implementation, administration and operation of the covered agreements (Art. III:1 WTO)

Forum for negotiations (Art. III:2 WTO)

Dispute settlement (Art. III:3 WTO)

Review of national trade policies (TPRM) (Art. III:4 WTO)

Coherence in global economic policy-making (Art. III:5 WTO)

Seattle – a rough start (1999)

Doha – what happened? (2001)

Cancun – what happened? (2003)

Most of the world’s citizens first heard about the WTO at the Seattle “Millennium Round” (popularly known as the “Battle of Seattle”), when talks ended in failure amid massive street demonstrations

The agenda for Seattle was ambitious: agriculture, services, intellectual property rights, government procurement (contracts), and competition rules, to name a few.

This round is known as the Millennium Round, the Doha Round, and the Development Round

Political environment – there are now 148 WTO members – about twice the GATT round

Progress on regional agreements

Countries negotiate only what they would do anyway

The attempts to expand the coverage of the WTO agreements became more apparent with the launching of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) at the WTO’s 4th Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in 2001.

In a nutshell, the DDA seeks to start negotiations on non-agricultural tariffs, trade and environment, WTO rules like anti-dumping and subsidies, investment, competition policy, trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, and intellectual property. The deadline for negotiations was on Jan. 1, 2005.

Agricultural subsidies Conflicts between trade liberalization

and environmental protection Competition policy Foreign investment protection Trade remedy laws (subsidies and

dumping)

Based on a draft ministerial declaration that was submitted by the WTO director general to ministers last ug. 31, 2003, moves by industrialized countries to include other non-trade issues at the Cancun Conference are facing stiff opposition from selected underdeveloped countries.

The call of third world governments to the monopoly-capitalist governments, especially those of the United States and the European Union, to made good their promise to remove domestic and export subsidies enjoyed by their homeland agriculture; and the drive of the monopoly-capitalist powers to push for even further liberalization in areas such as foreign investment