Presented By:

Ronak Rathor

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GATT was formed in 1947 and lasted until

1994 was replaced by the World Trade Organization

On 1 January, 1948 the agreement was signed by 23 countries.

GATT held a total of 8 rounds.

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World Trade Organization

The WTO was born out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Headquarters : Geneva, Switzerland

Formation : 1 January 1995

Membership : 153 member countries

Budget : 163 million USD (Approx).11/04/23 3 XIDAS Jabalpur

It is an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade.

The WTO has 153 members, which represents more than 95% of total world trade.

WTO cooperate closely with 2 other component IMF and World Bank.

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WTO is to ensure that global trade commences smoothly, freely and predictably.

Transparency in trade policies.

Work as a economic research and analysis centre.

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To create economic peace and stability in theworld through a multilateral system based onconsenting member states, that have ratified therules of the WTO in their individual countries asWell.

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GATT

It was ad hoc & provisional.

It had no provision for creating an organization.

It allowed contradictions in local law & GATT agreements.

WTO

It is permanent.

It has legal basis because member nations have verified the WTO agreements.

More authority than GATT. It doesn't allow any

contradictions in local law .

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GATT and WTO trade rounds[27]

Name Start Duration Countries Subjects covered Achievements

Geneva April 19477

months23 Tariffs

Signing of GATT, 45,000 tariff concessions affecting $10 billion of trade

Annecy April 19495

months13 Tariffs

Countries exchanged some 5,000 tariff concessions

TorquaySeptember

19508

months38 Tariffs

Countries exchanged some 8,700 tariff concessions, cutting the 1948 tariff levels by 25%

Geneva IIJanuary

19565

months26 Tariffs, admission of Japan $2.5 billion in tariff reductions

DillonSeptember

196011

months26 Tariffs

Tariff concessions worth $4.9 billion of world trade

Kennedy May 196437

months62 Tariffs, Anti-dumping

Tariff concessions worth $40 billion of world trade

TokyoSeptember

197374

months102

Tariffs, non-tariff measures, "framework" agreements

Tariff reductions worth more than $300 billion dollars achieved

UruguaySeptember

198687

months123

Tariffs, non-tariff measures, rules, services, intellectual property, dispute settlement, textiles, agriculture, creation of WTO, etc

The round led to the creation of WTO, and extended the range of trade negotiations, leading to major reductions in tariffs (about 40%) and agricultural subsidies, an agreement to allow full access for textiles and clothing from developing countries, and an extension of intellectual property rights.

DohaNovember

2001? 141

Tariffs, non-tariff measures, agriculture, labor standards, environment, competition, investment, transparency, patents etc

The round is not yet concluded.

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WTO STRUCTURE.doc

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Introduction.

After over 7 years of negotiations the Uruguay Round multilateral trade negotiations were concluded on December 1993 and were formally ratified in April 1994 at Marrakesh, Morocco.

The WTO Agreement on Agriculture was one of the main agreements which were negotiated during the Uruguay Round.

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The WTO Agreement on Agriculture contains provisions in 3 broad areas of agriculture:

1. Market access.2. Domestic support.3. Export subsidies

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This includes tariffication, tariff reduction and access opportunities.

Tariffication means that all non-tariff barriers such as...

1. quotas;2. variable levies;3. minimum import price;4. discretionary licensing;5. state trading measures.

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For domestic support policies, subject to reduction commitments, the total support given in 1986-88, measured by the Total Aggregate Measure of Support (total AMS).

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The Agreement contains provisions regarding members commitment to reduce Export Subsidies.

Developed countries are required to reduce their export subsidy expenditure by 36%.

For developing countries the percentage cuts are 24%.

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As India was maintaining Quantitative Restrictions due to balance of payments reasons(which is a GATT consistent measure), it did not have to undertake any commitments in regard to market access.

India does not provide any product specific support other than market price support.

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In India, exporters of agricultural commodities do not get any direct subsidy.

Indirect subsidies available to them are in the form of-:a. exemption of export profit from income tax under

section 80-HHC of the Income Taxb. subsidies on cost of freight on export shipments of

certain products like fruits, vegetables and floricultural products.

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India’s basic objectives in the ongoing negotiations are:

a. To protect its food and livelihood security concerns and to protect all domestic policy measures taken for poverty alleviation, rural development and rural employment.

b. To create opportunities for expansion of agricultural exports by securing meaningful market access in developed countries.

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The Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) is one of Agreements covered under Annex IA to the Marrakech Agreement, signed at the end of the Uruguay Round (UR) negotiations. The Agreement addresses investment measures that are trade related and that also violate Article III (National treatment) or Article XI (general elimination of quantitative restrictions) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. An illustrative list of the measures that are volatile of the provisions of the Agreement is annexed to the text of the Agreement. These pertain broadly to local content requirements, trade balancing requirements and export restrictions, attached to investment decision making.11/04/23 18 XIDAS Jabalpur

The Agreement requires all WTO Members to notify theTRIMs that are inconsistent with the provisions of theAgreement, and to eliminate them after the expiry of thetransition period provided in the Agreement. Transitionperiods of two years in the case of developed countries,five years in the case of developing countries and sevenyears in the case of LDCs, from the date of entry intoforce of the Agreement (i.e. 1stJanuary 1995) areprovided in the Agreement.

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As per the provisions of Art. 5.1 of the TRIMs Agreement Indiahad notified three trade related investment measures asinconsistent with the provisions of the Agreement: Local content (mixing) requirements in the production of News

Print, Local content requirement in the production of Rifampicin and

Penicillin – G, and Dividend balancing requirement in the case of investment in 22

categories consumer goods.Such notified TRIMs were due to be eliminated by 31st December,1999. None of these measures is in force at present. Therefore,India does not have any outstanding obligations under the TRIMsagreement as far as notified TRIMs are concerned.

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The areas of intellectual property that it covers are: copyright and related rights (i.e. the rights of performers, producers of sound recordings and broadcasting organizations); trademarks including service marks; geographical including appellations of origin; industrial designs; patents including the protection of new varieties of plants; the layout-designs of integrated circuits; and undisclosed information including trade secrets and test data.

Three main features of TRIPS :

• Standards

• Enforcement

• Dispute settlement

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The November 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health was adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference of2001 in Doha on November 14, 2001. It reaffirmed flexibility of TRIPS memberstates in circumventing patent rights for better access to essential medicines.

In Paragraphs 4 to 6 of the Doha Declaration, governments agreed that:

"4. The TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent Members from taking measures to protect public health. Accordingly, while reiterating our commitment to the TRIPS Agreement, we affirm that the Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members' right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all. In this connection, we reaffirm the right of WTO Members to use, to the full, the provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, which provide flexibility for this purpose.

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5. Accordingly and in the light of paragraph 4 above, while maintaining our commitments in the TRIPS Agreement, we recognize that these flexibilities include:

(a) In applying the customary rules of interpretation of public international law, each provision of the TRIPS Agreement shall be read in the light of the object and purpose of the Agreement as expressed, in particular, in its objectives and principles.

(b) Each Member has the right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licenses are granted.

(c) Each Member has the right to determine what constitutes a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, it being understood that public health crises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics, can represent a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency.

(d) The effect of the provisions in the TRIPS Agreement that are relevant to the exhaustion of intellectual property rights is to leave each Member free to establish its own regime for such exhaustion without challenge, subject to the MFN and national treatment provisions of Articles 3 and 4.

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6. We recognize that WTO Members with insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector could face difficulties in making effective use of compulsory licensing under the TRIPS Agreement. We instruct the Council for TRIPS to find an expeditious solution to this problem and to report to the General Council before the end of 2002."These provisions in the Declaration ensure that governments may issue compulsory licenses on patents for medicines, or take other steps to protect public health.”

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In 2005, WTO members reached agreement on an amendment to the TRIPSAgreement to make permanent the temporary waiver contained in the August 30WTO Decision, which itself fulfilled the requirement of para.6 of the DohaDeclaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of November 14, 2001.This decision created a mechanism to allow WTO members to issue compulsorylicenses to export generic versions of patented medicines to countries withinsufficient or no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector.

The 2005 Ministerial Declaration stated:"We reaffirm the importance we attach to the General Council Decision of 30August 2003 on the Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on

theTRIPS Agreement and Public Health, and to an amendment to the TRIPSAgreement replacing its provisions. In this regard, we welcome the work that hastaken place in the Council for TRIPS and the Decision of the General Council of 6December 2005 on an Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement."

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The amendment, the first ever to the TRIPS Agreement, was circulated to WTOmembers for formal adoption. A deadline of December 1, 2007 was set formembers to accept the permanent amendment. For the amendment to be put intoeffect, at least two-thirds of members must formally adopt it.

On November 30, 2007 Peter Mandelson, the then European Union's TradeCommissioner, announced that the European Union formally accepted the WorldTrade Organization -approved protocol of December 2005, amending the TRIPSAgreement. However, in order for the decision to have legal effect, two-thirds ofthe WTO's 151 Members are required to ratify the agreement. The EuropeanUnion's acceptance only brings the number to 41.

In 2008 a decision was made to extend the deadline for accepting the TRIPSagreement amendment. The deadline has been extended until 31 December 2009or "such later date as may be decided by the Ministerial Conference." 

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India, as a developing economy, has been benefittedbeing a founding member of the World tradeOrganization. The country at large has seen manysignificant changes which have taken place after theformation of WTO. There are some issues which areyet to be sorted out with the WTO and but by andlarge things are falling in shape for the IndianEconomy.

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