WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to

supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially
commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement,
replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which
commenced in 1948. The organization deals with regulation of trade
between participating countries by providing a framework for
negotiating and formalizing trade agreements and a dispute resolution
process aimed at enforcing participant's adherence to WTO agreements,
which are signed by representatives of member government and ratified
by their parliaments. Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive
from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round
(19861994).
The organization is a ttempting to complete negotiations on the Doha
Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus
on addressing the needs of developing countries. As of June 2012, the
future of the Doha Round remained uncertain: the work programme lists
21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed,
and the round is still incomplete.The conflict between free trade on
industrial goods and services but retention of protectionism on farm
subsidies to domestic agricultural sector (requested by developed
countries) and the substantiation of the international liberalization of
fair trade on agricultural products (requested by developing countries)
remain the major obstacles. These points of contention have hindered
any progress to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha
Development Round. As a result of this impasse, there has been an
increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements signed. As of July
2012, there were various negotiation groups in the WTO system for the
current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of
stalemate.
WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

The original member states of the World Trade Organization are the parties
to the GATT after ratifying the Uruguay Round Agreements , and the
European Communities. They obtained this status at the entry into force
on 1 January 1995 or upon their date of ratification. All other members
have joined the organization as a result of negotiation, and membership
consists of a balance of rights and obligations. The process of becoming a
World Trade Organization (WTO) member is unique to each applicant
country, and the terms of accession are dependent upon the country's
stage of economic development and the current trade regime.
WTO's current Director-General is Roberto Azevdo,

who leads a staff of
over 600 people in Geneva, Switzerland. A trade facilitation agreement
known as the Bali Package was reached by all members on 7 December
2013, the first comprehensive agreement in the organization's history.


Director-General of the World Trade
Organization
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In May 2013 Azevdo was announced to succeed Pascal Lamy as the
WTO's Director General, with a term beginning 1 September 2013. There
were nine nominated candidates for the role, Azevdo being considered
the "insider's candidate" preferred by developing economies.His
opponent, Mexican Herminio Blanco, was considered to have been the
preferred candidate of richer nations. The Brazilian government pre-
empted the official announcement of the WTO and stated that Azevdo
had won by a wide margin.
The official announcement from the WTO's three-person committee for
selecting the Director-General was published on 8 May 2013, declaring
Azevdo as the emergent consensus candidate from several rounds of
consultation. The formal election occurred at the General Council
meeting on 14 May. His first diplomatic posting was to Washington in
1988. He subsequently served in the Brazilian embassy in Montevideo,
Uruguay before being assigned to the Permanent Mission of Brazil in
Geneva, Switzerland in 1997.From 2006 to 2008 he was Vice-Minister
for Economic and Technical Affairs at the Foreign Ministry in Brasilia. In
that capacity he was Brazil's chief trade negotiator for the Doha Round
and represented Brazil in MERCOSUR negotiations.
In 2008 he was appointed Brazils Ambassador in Geneva to the United
Nations international organizations and Permanent Representative to
the WTO.
Ambassador Azevdo has been a frequent lecturer on topics related to
international economics and has published numerous articles on these
issues.On his watch, the WTO agreed to the Bali Package.






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The Bali Package is a trade agreement resulting from the Ninth
Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Bali,
Indonesia on 37 December 2013. It is aimed at lowering global trade
barriers and is the first agreement reached through the WTO that is
approved by all its members. The package forms part of the Doha
Development Round, which started in 2001.
The accord includes provisions for lowering import tariffs and
agricultural subsidies, with the intention of making it easier for
developing countries to trade with the developed world in global
markets. Developed countries would abolish hard import quotas on
agricultural products from the developing world and instead would only
be allowed to charge tariffs on amount of agricultural imports exceeding
specific limits. The Bali Package consists of ten separate decisions by the
Ministerial Conference, covering four areas as follow.
Trade Facilitation
Agriculture
Cotton
Development and LDC (Least developed countries ) issues.




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Negotiations (The Bali Package)
Before the agreement, the negotiations repeatedly came close to
collapsing. India's demand that it should be allowed to extend its
domestic agricultural subsidies indefinitely was met by opposition from
the U.S., while Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela objected to the
removal of a text relating to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Eventually,
India and the U.S. reached a compromise where a permanent solution to
the Indian subsidies will be decided in separate future negotiations
within four years, while Cuba reached a compromise that saw it refrain
from vetoing the agreement.
The negotiations were originally scheduled for 36 December 2013.
However, they had to extend until 7 December for an agreement to be
reached.
This was the first global agreement by the WTO. Director-General
Roberto Azevdo said: "For the first time in our history, the WTO has truly
delivered. We're back in business Bali is just the beginning." He also
expressed fears of bilateral agreements if the WTO talks failed. The
Trade Minister of the host country, Indonesia, Gita Wirjawan, said the
agreement was "historic". The United States Chamber of Commerce
issued a statement that read: "With this landmark accord on trade
facilitation and other issues, the WTO has re-established its credibility
as an indispensable forum for trade negotiations.
India
While the negotiations targeted for a universal and multilateral
agreement without exceptions, India was able to introduce an exception
for its agricultural subsidy programme by threatening to stifle the
negotiations. However, it had to agree to a number of limitations.
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Criticism of the World Trade Organization


Protestors clashing with Hong Kong police in the Wan Chai waterfront area during the WTO Ministerial
Conference of 2005.
The stated aim of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is to promote free trade and
stimulate economic growth. The actions and methods of the World Trade Organization
evoke strong antipathies. Among other things, the WTO is accused of widening the social gap
between rich and poor it claims to be fixing.
Decision making
Another critic has characterized the "Green room" discussions in the WTO as
unrepresentative and non-inclusive; more active participants, representing more diverse
interests and objectives, have complicated WTO decision-making, and the process of
"consensus-building" has broken down. Results of green room discussions are presented to
the rest of the WTO which may vote on the result. They have thus proposed the
establishment of a small, informal steering committee (a "consultative board") that can be
delegated responsibility for developing consensus on trade issues among the member
countries.
[11]
The Third World Network has called the WTO "the most non-transparent of
international organisations", because "the vast majority of developing countries have very
little real say in the WTO system".
It does not resolve the problem of "informal meetings" whereby industrialized countries
negotiate the most important decisions
It does not reduce the de facto inequality which exists between countries with regards to
an effective and efficient participation to all activities within all WTO bodies.
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