Business Concepts

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1947 – 1994
Signed in 1947, is a multilateral agreement regulating trade among 153 countries, created following the conclusion of World War II, and implemented to further regulate world trade to aide in the economic recovery following the war.
According to its preamble, the purpose of the GATT is the "substantial reduction of tariffs and othertrade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."

The GATT functioned de facto (in practice or actuality, but not officially established) as an organization, conducting eight rounds of talks addressing various trade issues and resolving international trade disputes.
Year | Place / Name | Subjects covered | Countries |
1947 | Geneva | Tariffs| 23 |
1949 | Annecy | Tariffs | 13 |
1951 | Torquay | Tariffs | 38 |
1956 | Geneva | Tariffs | 26 |
1960 – 1961 | Geneva / Dillon round | Tariffs | 26 |
1964 – 1967 | Geneva / Kennedy round | Tariffs and anti-dumping measures | 62 |
1973 – 1979 | Geneva / Tokyo rouns | Tariffs, non-tariff measures, “framework” agreements. | 102 |
1986 – 1994 | Geneva / Uruguat round | Tariffs,non-tariff measures, rules, services, intellectual property, dispute settlement, textiles, agriculture, creation of WTO, etc. | 123 |

Much of the history of those 47 years was written in Geneva. But it also traces a journey that spanned the continents, from that hesitant start in 1948 in Havana (Cuba), via Annecy (France), Torquay (UK), Tokyo (Japan), Punta del Este (Uruguay), Montreal (Canada),Brussels (Belgium) and finally to Marrakesh (Morocco) in 1994.
GATT helped establish a strong and prosperous multilateral trading system that became more and more liberal through rounds of trade negotiations, but by the 1980’s the system needed a thorough overhaul. This led to the Uruguay Round, and ultimately to the WTO.
From 1948 to 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)provided the rules for much of world trade and presided over periods that saw some of the highest growth rates in international commerce. It seemed well-established, but through those 47 years, it was a provisional agreement and organization.
The original intention was to create a third institution to handle the trade side of international economic cooperation, joining the two “Bretton Woods”institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Over 50 countries participated in negotiations to create an International Trade Organization (ITO) as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
GATT was provisional with a limited field of action, but its success over 47 years in promoting and securing the liberalization of much of world trade is incontestable. Continual reductions intariffs alone helped spur very high rates of world trade growth during the 1950s and 1960s — around 8% a year on average.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

The WTO is an international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably, and freely as possible.

It can also be defined as an organizationfor trade opening, a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements, and a place for them to settle trade disputes. It operates a system of trade rules.
The WTO was born out of negotiations, and everything the WTO does is the result of negotiations.

The bulk of the WTO’s current work comes from the 1986–1994 negotiations called the “Uruguay Round” and earlier negotiations under theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

The heart of the WTO is its agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations.
These documents provide the legal ground rules for international commerce. They are essentially contracts, binding governments to keep their trade policies within agreed limits, and its main goal is to help producers of goods and services,...