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The World Trade Organization Essay

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The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is today seen as one of the pillars of international trade and financial systems of the world alongside the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, despite being only sixteen years old. With what began as the succession to the previous guidelines and rules set out by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade back in 1948, it is now seen as the ‘main unifying force of world trade today’ a key player in both the conduct of trade relations and global governance. (Herman, 1999) Today, as the world’s economy and its nations continue to change and grow together with the global business environment itself, the WTO has faced new challenges and perhaps its biggest challenges to date which question the …show more content…

The present main rules and principles that currently embody the organisation are the non-discrimination of markets, reciprocity, transparency and offering special assistance towards developing countries. (Ahearn, 2010)
The WTO pursues its objectives through operating as a forum, which encourage negotiations between members to administer trade agreements. Negotiations are run according to dispute settlements. Other goals of the WTO include the review of national trade policies and offering assistance with the cooperation of other international organisations through assistance and training. Principles are then incorporated into the system following negotiations and debates with its members, known as rounds, with the bulk of current principles emerging from the Uruguay round between 1986 and 1994.

To date there have been many successes of the system with which the WTO can account for since its creation. The primary success has been the growth in world trade through the WTO’s removal of trade barriers and globalisation, giving an 120% increase in trade according to (Subramania, Wei 2007). Dispute settlement is another strength of the organisation where the WTO is able to handle three times the number of disputes in comparison to the previous system, the GATT thus reducing the time it takes for laws and guidelines to be implemented into practice. (Lash, 2000)
The WTO additionally aimed to promote trade

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