A Presentation on WTO and the Millennium Round

1. A Presentation on WTO and the Millennium Round

2. What is the WTO? WTO is responsible for administering dozens of international trade agreements and declarations and handles: trade disputes monitors national trade policies, operates as the forum for global trade negotiations, called rounds.”

3. GATT: predecessor of WTO • 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

4. GATT: predecessor of WTO • 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

5. WTO: Structure • 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

6. WTO: Main functions • 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)

7. THE WTO ROUND • Seattle – a rough start (1999) • Doha – what happened? (2001) • Cancun – what happened? (2003)

8. What happened at Seattle? • 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.

9. THE WTO ROUND • 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

10. What happened at DOHA? (Development Round) • 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.

11. Doha Round Agenda • Agricultural subsidies • Conflicts between trade liberalization and environmental protection • Competition policy • Foreign investment protection • Trade remedy laws (subsidies and dumping)

12. What Happened at Cancun? • 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