World Trade Organization
The World Trade
Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization which
regulates international trade. The
WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement,
signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
which commenced in 1948. The WTO deals with regulation of trade between
participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade
agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants'
adherence to WTO agreements, which are signed by representatives of member
governments and ratified by their parliaments.[7] Most
of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations,
especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).
The WTO is attempting to
complete negotiations on the Doha Development
Round,
which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on developing countries. As
of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained uncertain: the work
programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005
was missed, and the round is still incomplete. The conflict between free
trade on industrial goods and services but retention of protectionism on farm subsidies to
domestic agricultural sector (requested
by developed countries) and
the substantiation of fair trade on
agricultural products (requested by developing countries)
remain the major obstacles. This impasse has made it impossible to launch new
WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result, there have
been an increasing number of bilateral free trade
agreements between
governments. As of July 2012, there were various negotiation groups in the WTO
system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition
of stalemate.
The WTO's current
Director-General is Roberto Azevêdo, who
leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, Switzerland. A
trade facilitation agreement known as the Bali Package was
reached by all members on 7 December 2013, the first comprehensive agreement in
the organization's history
Advantages of WTO:
-Helps promote peace within nations: Peace
is partly an outcome of two of the most fundamental principle of the trading system;
helping trade flow smoothly and providing countries with a constructive and
fair outlet for dealing with disputes over trade issues. Peace creates
international confidence and cooperation that the WTO creates and reinforces.
-Disputes are handled constructively: As trade expands in volume, in the numbers of products traded and in the number of countries and company trading, there is a greater chance that disputes will arise. WTO helps resolve these disputes peacefully and constructively. If this could be left to the member states, the dispute may lead to serious conflict, but lot of trade tension is reduced by organizations such as WTO.
-Rules make life easier for all: WTO system is based on rules rather than power and this makes life easier for all trading nations. WTO reduces some inequalities giving smaller countries more voice, and at the same time freeing the major powers from the complexity of having to negotiate trade agreements with each of the member states.
-Free trade cuts the cost of living: Protectionism is expensive, it raises prices, and WTO lowers trade barriers through negotiation and applies the principle of non-discrimination. The result is reduced costs of production (because imports used in production are cheaper) and reduced prices of finished goods and services, and ultimately a lower cost of living.
-It provides more choice of products and qualities: It gives consumer more choice and a broader range of qualities to choose from.
-Trade raises income: Through WTO trade barriers are lowered and this increases imports and exports thus earning the country foreign exchange thus raising the country's income.
-Trade stimulates economic growth: With upward trend economic growth, jobs can be created and this can be enhanced by WTO through careful policy making and powers of freer trade.
-Basic principles make life more efficient: The basic principles make the system economically more efficient and they cut costs. Many benefits of the trading system are as a result of essential principle at the heart of the WTO system and they make life simpler for the enterprises directly involved in international trade and for the producers of goods/services. Such principles include; non-discrimination, transparency, increased certainty about trading conditions etc. together they make trading simpler, cutting company costs and increasing confidence in the future and this in turn means more job opportunities and better goods and services for consumers.
-Governments are shielded from lobbying: WTO system shields the government from narrow interest. Government is better placed to defend themselves against lobbying from narrow interest groups by focusing on trade-offs that are made in the interests of everyone in the economy.
-The system encourages good governance: The
WTO system encourages good government. The WTO rules discourage a range of
unwise policies and the commitment made to liberalize a sector of trade becomes
difficult to reverse. These rules reduce opportunities for corruption.
Disadvantages of WTO:
-The WTO is fundamentally undemocratic: The policies of the WTO impact all aspects of society and the planet, but it is not a democratic, transparent institution. The WTO rules are written by and for corporations with inside access to the negotiations. For example, the US Trade Representative gets heavy input for negotiations from 17 "Industry Sector Advisory Committees" Citizen input by consumer, environmental, human rights and labor organizations is consistently ignored. Even simple requests for information are denied, and the proceedings are held in secret.
-The WTO won’t make us safer: The WTO would like you to believe that creating a world of free trade will promote global understanding and peace. On the contrary, the domination of international trade by rich countries for the benefit of their individual interests fuels anger and resentment that make us less safe. To build real global security, we need international agreements that respect people's rights to democracy and trade systems that promote global justice.
-The WTO tramples labor and human rights: WTO rules put the rights of corporations to profit over human and labor rights. The WTO encourages a race to the bottom in wages by pitting workers against each other rather than promoting internationally recognized labor standards. The WTO has ruled that it is illegal for a government to ban a product based on the way it is produced, such as with child labor. It has also ruled that governments cannot take into account non commercial values such as human rights, or the behavior of companies that do business with vicious dictatorships such as Burma when making purchasing decisions.
-The WTO Would Privatize Essential
Services: The
WTO is seeking to privatize essential public services such as education, health
care, energy and water. Privatization means the selling off of public assets
such as radio airwaves or schools to private corporations, to run for profit
rather than the public good. The WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services,
or GATS, includes a list of about 160 threatened services including elder and
child care, sewage, garbage, park maintenance, telecommunications,
construction, banking, insurance, transportation, shipping, postal services,
and tourism. In some countries, privatization is already occurring. Those least
able to pay for vital services working class communities and communities of
color - are the ones who suffer the most.
-The WTO Is Destroying the
Environment: The
WTO is being used by corporations to dismantle hard-won local and national
environmental protections, which are attacked as barriers to trade. The very
first WTO panel ruled that a provision of the US Clean Air Act, requiring both
domestic and foreign producers alike to produce cleaner gasoline, was illegal.
The WTO declared illegal a provision of the Endangered Species Act that
requires shrimp sold in the US to be caught with an inexpensive device allowing
endangered sea turtles to escape. The WTO is attempting to deregulate
industries including logging, fishing, water utilities, and energy
distribution, which will lead to further exploitation of these natural
resources.
-The WTO is Killing People: The WTO's fierce defense of Trade Related Intellectual Property rights (TRIPs) patents copyrights and trademarks comes at the expense of health and human lives. The WTO has protected for pharmaceutical companies right to profit against governments seeking to protect their people's health by providing lifesaving medicines in countries in areas like sub-saharan Africa, where thousands die every day from HIV/AIDS. Developing countries won an important victory in 2001 when they affirmed the right to produce generic drugs (or import them if they lacked production capacity), so that they could provide essential lifesaving medicines to their populations less expensively. Unfortunately, in September 2003, many new conditions were agreed to that will make it more difficult for countries to produce those drugs. Once again, the WTO demonstrates that it favors corporate profit over saving human lives.
