I. Introduction and Background
What is the World Trade Organization, and how can it be so controversial? The WTO itself has only been around for 11 years, since 1995, but its principles and operations date back to 1947. Following World War II, the United States along with other countries wanted to create an international trade body that would help promote trade and the global economy. The organization created became known as GATT, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. GATT's main functions were to lower tariffs and to be an international court-style system to settle trade disputes between nations. One of the principles that GATT was founded on was that of nondiscrimination, meaning one country could not favor trade with another country and not give other countries the same benefits. The GATT system had several "Rounds" of negotiations to lower tariffs and the first round in 1947 successfully lowered tariffs an average of twenty-one percent. At the conclusion of the Uruguay Round on January 1, 1995 GATT was transformed from a trade accord into an organization that required membership and was an international governing body that basically created codes of conduct for trade between its members. (Carbaugh, 181).
GATT and WTO are different in many ways. The main difference being that GATT was a set of rules agreed upon by nations, the WTO is a institutional body that covers a broader range of trade to include not only goods, but also goods in the service sector such as insurance, banking, and investments, and TRIPS which stands for Trade Related Intellectual Property rights, (GATT). The GATT dispute settlement process did not include the authority to enforce the panel's recommendations.
II. The Structure of WTO ...