World Trade Organisation

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

Deals with global rules of trade between nations. It is the global institution responsible for facilitating international trade.

Main roles and aims: to supervise and liberalise trade by reducing barriers, to act as an arbitrator sorting out trade problems between member governments, to negotiate to reach agreements that become legal ground rules for international commerce, to provide stability by giving trading nations confidence that there will be no sudden policy changes

Established in 1995, is the successor of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
Over 160 members (over ¾ of which are developing or least-developed countries)
Run by its members and al decisions are taken by consensus

Question 2

1

Answer 2

The WTO holds rounds’ of talks to reach multi-lateral
agreements to advance global free trade. The most
recent of these was the Doha Development Round
which started in 2001 in Qatar and effectively came to
an end in Nairobi in 2015. The Doha round focused
on reforming trade in agricultural produce, especially
between advanced and developing economies, with the
aim of helping less developed nations out of poverty.
The annual talks repeatedly stalled with meetings in
Geneva (2008), Bali (2013) and finally Nairobi (2015).
Some progress was achieved to redress inequalities
in access for LDEs to HDE markets but
overall, the difficulty of reaching a multi-lateral trade
agreement with 164 countries, each with economic and
political self-interest, proved insurmountable

Question 3

Doha problems

Answer 3

Disagreement mainly between HDEs (USA, EU and Japan) and developing
economies (especially Brazil, India and China)
HDEs insisted that, in return for free access, developing economies open
their markets to ‘western’ manufactured goods
Emerging economies insisted on large cuts in subsidies paid to US and EU
farmers; US farmers demanded more market access abroad in return for
subsidy cuts
USA, China and India would not compromise on the size of their tariffs
USA would not agree to allow India and China to use ‘safeguard clauses,
which allowed developing nations to impose emergency quotas on
imports
Divisions among LDCs, between net importers and net exporters of
agricultural produce
HDEs disagreed among themselves; EU more willing than the US for
agricultural trade to be opened up
China transformed into a global export powerhouse but continued to claim
developing country status
HDEs, especially the US, accused China of unfair trade as much of their
production is state-aided

Question 4

Doha progress

Answer 4

A bilateral agreement was reached between the EU
and Latin American countries to end a long-standing
dispute about trade in bananas
WTO achieved its first trade multilateral
agreement in nearly twenty years with the Bali
Package - an agreement between all members to
speed up the movement of traded goods and reduce
costs by removing red tape in customs procedures
Nairobi Package: some decisions were made to
benefit WTO’s poorest members:
export subsidies for farm exports were abolished
preferential treatment given for LDCs in services
trade
safeguarding measures introduced to ensure food
security in LDCs
improved measures for DC cotton traders
some trade barrier removal on goods of LDC
origin