Twenty Years of World Trade Organization (WTO), 1995-2015

As of January 1, 2016, 162 countries of the world are members of the WTO. The creation of the WTO in 1995 marked the biggest reform of international trade since 1948. The WTO is the only international body dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO Agreements, the legal ground rules for international commerce and for trade policy. The agreements have three main objectives: (a) to help trade flow as freely as possible (b) to achieve further liberalisation gradually through negotiations, and (c) to set up an impartial means of settling disputes. A number of simple, fundamental principles run throughout the WTO Agreements. They are the foundation of the multilateral trading system. They include: non-discrimination, freer trade, predictable policies, encouragement to competition, and extra provisions for less developed countries. The present work provides an exhaustive description and documentation of the demise of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the birth of the WTO. More importantly, this work focuses on the present structure and functioning of the WTO, its various agreements and declarations, its dispute settlement mechanism, its trade review mechanism, pending issues, and on-going negotiations. [Subject: International Economics, Trade & Tariffs, Economic History, Development Studies, World Trade Organization (WTO)]