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World Trade Organization - Essay

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WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only 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. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. The 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 Institution known as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A comparable international institution …show more content…

These internal transparency requirements are supplemented and facilitated by periodic country-specific reports (trade policy reviews) through the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The WTO system tries also to improve predictability and stability, discouraging the use of quotas and other measures used to set limits on quantities of imports. 5. Safety valves. In specific circumstances, governments are able to restrict trade. There are three types of provisions in this direction: articles allowing for the use of trade measures to attain non-economic objectives; articles aimed at ensuring "fair competition"; and provisions permitting intervention in trade for economic reasons. Exceptions to the MFN principle also allow for preferential treatment of developing countries, regional free trade areas and customs unions. The WTO has come in for fierce criticism from the anti-globalization, environmental and development lobbies. They argue that WTO: • Allows rich countries to exploit the Third World workers, paying them low wages and making them work in conditions which would be completely unacceptable n developed countries. • Is causing an environmental catastrophe in the Third World as rich countries plunder the national resources of the planet and give very little in return to poor countries. • Forces poor countries to lower their barriers to trade while rich countries keep their barriers in

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