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“World Trade Organization”

Introduction

World Trade Organization (WTO) is a type of International Trade Organization which refers
to intergovernmental organization that controls international trade. The Marrakesh Agreement
signed by 123 nations on 1st of January in the year 1995 marked its official beginning, replacing
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which was started in 1948. Actually, Marrakesh
Agreement was signed in Marrakesh, Morocco culminating an 8 yearlong Uruguay Round
discussions to its establishment.

It has it’s headquarter in Centre William Rappard, Geneva, Switzerland. Unlike GATT
which has its primary role as regulating the trade goods, WTO has an additional role of controlling
intellectual property between participating countries by giving out a layout for trade agreements

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negotiation and dispute resolution process with its main goal being enforcing adherence of
participating country to WTO agreements and regulating trade goods. It is currently the largest
economic organization worldwide.

WTO has four main areas of activity, trade negotiation, dispute settlement,
implementation and building trade capacity. Their goal is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly,
predictably and freely as possible. It has a global system of trade rules, acting as a forum for
negotiating trade agreements, settling disputes between its members and ensuring support for the
needs of developing countries.

The structure of the WTO is topped by Ministerial conference, consisting of all WTO
members, which must meet at least after every two years. They are mandated to take decisions on
matters multilateral trade agreements. Its daily operations, is undertaken by subsidiary bodies,
fundamentally, General council, which also composed of WTO members which is required to report
to Ministerial Conference and conducting dealing on behalf of Ministerial Conference. General
Council has two important forms of convening, first, at dispute settlement body, this is to monitor
dispute settlement procedures and secondly as Trade Policy Review Body for reviewing trade
policies of individual WTO members.

The General Council delegates responsibility to three other major bodies which are: the
Councils for Trade in Goods, Trade in Services and Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property.
The Council for Goods deals with the implementation and functioning of all the agreements (Annex
1A of the WTO Agreement) covering trade in goods, though many such agreements have their own
specific overseeing bodies. The remaining two Councils have responsibility for their respective
WTO agreements (Annexes 1B and 1C) and may establish their own subsidiary bodies as necessary.

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Three other bodies are established by the Ministerial Conference and report to the General
Council. The Committee on Trade and Development is concerned with issues relating to the
developing countries and, especially, to the least developed among them. The Committee on
Balance of Payments is responsible for consultations between WTO members and countries which
take trade-restrictive measures, under Articles XII and XVIII of GATT, in order to cope with
balance-of-payments difficulties. Finally, issues relating to WTO's financing and budget are dealt
with by a Committee on Budget.

It is important to note that, WTO uses consensus in seeking to make decision as
opposed to the popular voting decision making style. This is helpful because it ensures members’
interest are put into consideration. Members may join a consensus for the overall interest of the
multilateral trading system, except where there is no agreement, members vote, decision is by
majority of votes cast and on the ground of one country, one vote. WTO outlines four specific
situations of voting as: First, a majority of three quarter of its members can vote in adopting an
interpretation of any multilateral trade agreements. Secondly, is by same majority vote, Ministerial
Conference, may decide to waive an obligation imposed on a particular member by a multilateral
agreement. Third, depending on the nature of provisions, decisions to amend provisions of the
multilateral agreement can be adopted by approval of all members or two- thirds majority. Lastly, a
decision of admissions of new members is taken by two-thirds majority in the Ministerial
Conference.

The WTO has a secretariat, also headquartered in Geneva. It has a staff capacity of 450
members headed by Director General, who currently is MR. Renato Ruggiero, and other four
deputy directors general. It has roles such as providing technical support to developing countries
and least developed, and servicing WTO delegates bodies with respect to negotiations and
implementation of agreements. It also has economists and statistician who assist in providing trade
performances and analyses and the legal staff who are useful in resolution of trade disputes as far as

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interpretation of WTO rules are concerned. At the epitome of secretariat work is accession
negotiation for newly admitted members and providing advice to government considering joining
the organization. The WTO has a budget of approximately US$83 million (105 million Swiss
Francs) and individual contributions calculated on the basis of shares in total of trade conducted by
WTO members. International Trade Centre parts with some budget.

Membership of WTO is voluntary. Majority of members are previous GATT members
who signed the Final Act of the Uruguay Round and finalized market access negotiations on goods
and services by the Marrakesh meeting in 1994. Besides, other countries that participated in
Uruguay Round negotiations concluded their domestic ratification procedures in the period of 1995
and became members after. Applicant government, in first accession procedures are supposed to
provide WTO with a memorandum covering all aspects of its trade and economic policies in line
with WTO agreements. The memorandum becomes the basis for examination of request of
accession for a working party (Thomas, 2013).

The applicant government engages in bilateral negotiations to set concessions and
commitments on goods and services. The bilateral process determines benefits for WTO members
in the process of permitting members to accede. After both market access talks and applications of
applicant’s trade regime are finished, basic terms of accession are drawn by working party. Lastly,
deliberations of working party submitted in report form, protocol of accession draft, and schedules
of agreements for bilateral talks are submitted to General Council or Ministerial Conference for
adoption purposes. In the event that the two-thirds majority of members vote in favor, government
applicant is at liberty to sign the protocol and accede to WTO, especially after ratification by the
respective national legislature (Matsushita, 2015).

In as much as WTO is service oriented towards meeting its set purpose, its existence is
quite controversial, people have divergent views about it. First criticism is, free trade is beneficial

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to develope...