The WTO was established in 1995 to oversee international trade agreements and liberalize trade. It replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which was formed after WWII to reduce tariffs and promote cooperation. The WTO operates as a forum for negotiating trade agreements, settling disputes, and reviewing national trade policies according to principles like non-discrimination and transparency. It has 157 member countries and aims to help trade flow freely, fairly, and predictably globally.

1. • The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization
designed by its founders to supervise and liberalize international
trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995
under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1947.

2. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the global international
organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.
At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by
the bulk of the world’s trading nations and ratified in their
parliaments.

3. • he WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), was established after World War II in the wake of other new
multilateral institutions dedicated to international economic
cooperation - notably the Bretton Woods institutions known as the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

4. • It oversees the implementation, administration and operation of
the covered agreements. It provides a forum for negotiations and for
settling disputes. Additionally, it is the WTO's duty to review and propagate
the national trade policies, and to ensure the coherence and transparency
of trade policies through surveillance in global economic policy-making.
Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-
developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules
and disciplines through technical cooperation and training.[ The WTO is
also a center of economic research and analysis: regular assessments of the
global trade picture in its annual publications and research reports on
specific topics are produced by the organization. Finally, the WTO
cooperates closely with the two other components of the Bretton Woods
system, the IMF and the World Bank.

5. • A comparable international institution for trade, named the
International Trade Organization was successfully negotiated. The ITO
was to be a United Nations specialized agency and would address not
only trade barriers but other issues indirectly related to trade,
including employment, investment, restrictive business practices, and
commodity agreements. But the ITO treaty was not approved by the
United States and a few other signatories and never went into effect.

6. • In the absence of an international organization for trade, the GATT
would over the years "transform itself" into a de facto international
organization. The GATT was the only multilateral instrument
governing international trade from 1948 until the WTO was
established in 1995.

7. • Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under the GATT. The first
GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing tariffs. Then, the
Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT anti-dumping
Agreement and a section on development. The Tokyo Round during
the seventies was the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that
do not take the form of tariffs, and to improve the system, adopting a
series of agreements on non-tariff barriers, which in some cases
interpreted existing GATT rules, and in others broke entirely new
ground.

8. • Uruguay Round The eighth GATT round — known as the
Uruguay Round — was launched in September 1986, in Punta del
Este, Uruguay. It was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever
agreed: the talks were going to extend the trading system into several
new areas, notably trade in services and intellectual property, and to
reform trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles; all the
original GATT articles were up for review.

9. • THE OBJECTIVES: The WTO’s overriding objective is to help trade
flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably. It does this by:
Administering trade agreements Acting as a forum for trade
negotiations Settling trade disputes Reviewing national trade
policies Assisting developing countries in trade policy issues,
through technical assistance and training programmes Cooperating
with other international organizations

10. • The WTO has 157 members, accounting for over 97% of world trade.
Decisions are made by the entire membership. This is typically by
consensus. A majority vote is also possible but it has never been used
in the WTO, and was extremely rare under the WTO’s predecessor,
GATT. The WTO’s agreements have been ratified in all members’
parliaments.

11. • The WTO’s top level decision-making body is the Ministerial
Conference which meets at least once every two years. Below this is
the General Council (normally ambassadors and heads of delegation
in Geneva, but sometimes officials sent from members’ capitals)
which meets several times a year in the Geneva headquarters. The
General Council also meets as the Trade Policy Review Body and the
Dispute Settlement Body. At the next level, the Goods Council,
Services Council and Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Council report to
the General Council. Numerous specialized committees, working
groups and working parties deal with the individual agreements and
other areas such as the environment, development, membership
applications and regional trade agreements.

12. • The WTO Secretariat, based in Geneva, has around 639 staff
and is headed by a directorgeneral. Its annual budget is roughly 197
million Swiss francs. It does not have branch offices outside Geneva.
Since decisions are taken by the members themselves, the Secretariat
does not have the decision-making role that other international
bureaucracies are given.

13. • The Secretariat’s main duties are to supply technical support for
the various councils and committees and the ministerial conferences,
to provide technical assistance for developing countries, to analyze
world trade, and to explain WTO affairs to the public and media. The
Secretariat also provides some forms of legal assistance in the dispute
settlement process and advises governments wishing to become
members of the WTO.

14. • Five principles are of particular importance in understanding
both the pre-1994 GATT and the WTO. Non-Discrimination. It has two
major components: the most favoured nation (MFN) rule, and the
national treatment policy. The MFN rule requires that a WTO member
must apply the same conditions on all trade with other WTO
members. National treatment means that imported goods should be
treated no less favorably than domestically-produced goods (at least
after the foreign goods have entered the market) and was introduced
to tackle non-tariff barriers to trade (e.g. technical standards, security
standards et al. discriminating against imported goods).

15. • Reciprocity. It reflects both a desire to limit the scope of free-riding
that may arise because of the MFN rule, and a desire to obtain better
access to foreign markets. Binding and enforceable commitments .
The tariff commitments made by WTO members in a multilateral
trade negotiation and on accession are enumerated in a schedule
(list) of concessions. These schedules establish "ceiling bindings": a
country can change its bindings, but only after negotiating with its
trading partners, which could mean compensating them for loss of
trade. If satisfaction is not obtained, the complaining country may
invoke the WTO dispute settlement procedures.

16. • Transparency. The WTO members are required to publish their trade
regulations, to maintain institutions allowing for the review of
administrative decisions affecting trade, to respond to requests for
information by other members, and to notify changes in trade policies
to the WTO. Safety valves. In specific circumstances, governments
are able to restrict trade.