Presented By:

S.CHAITANYA(12BEC0209)
K.N.ABHINAV(12BIT0151)

The World Trade Organization is member-driven,

with decisions taken by General agreement among all
member of governments and it deals with the rules of
trade between nations at a global or near-global level.
But there is more to it than that.
They deal with: agriculture, textiles and clothing,
banking, telecommunications, government purchases,
industrial standards and product safety, food sanitation
regulations, intellectual property, and much more.
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The World Trade Organization (WTO) came into

being on January 1st 1995. It was the outcome of the
lengthy (1986-1994) Uruguay round of GATT
negotiations. The WTO was essentially an extension
of GATT.
It extended GATT in two major ways. First GATT
became only one of the three major trade agreements
that went into the WTO (the other two being the
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and
the agreements on Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)).

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Second the WTO was put on a much sounder

institutional footing than GATT. With GATT the
support services that helped maintain the agreement
had come into being in an ad hoc manner as the need
arose. The WTO by contrast is a fully fledged
institution (GATT also was, at least formally, only an
agreement between contracting parties and had no
independent existence of its own while the WTO is a
corporate body recognized under international law).

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 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).

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 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

component IMF and World Bank.

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other

 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 the

world through a multilateral system based on
consenting member states, that have ratified the
rules of the WTO in their individual countries as
Well.

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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.
It was less powerful,dispute
settlement system was
slow,less efficient,its ruling
could be easily blocked

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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 .
It is more powerful than
GATT,dispute settlement
mechanism is faster,more
efficient,very difficult to block
the rulings

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GATT and WTO trade rounds

Name

Start

Genev
a

April
1947

Annec
y

April
1949

Durati
on
7
month
s
5
month
s

Countries

Subjects covered

Achievements

23

Tariffs

Signing of GATT, 45,000

tariff concessions affecting
$10 billion of trade

13

Tariffs

Countries exchanged some

5,000 tariff concessions

Septem
8
Torqua
ber
month
y
1950
s

38

Tariffs

Countries exchanged some

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

5
Genev January
month
a II
1956
s

26

Tariffs, admission of Japan

$2.5 billion in tariff

reductions

Septem
11
ber
month
1960
s

26

Tariffs

Tariff concessions worth

$4.9 billion of world trade

37
month
s

62

Tariffs,Anti-dumping

Tariff concessions worth $40

billion of world trade

Dillon
Kenne
dy

May
1964

Septem
74
Tokyo
ber
month
1973
s

Urugu
ay

Septem
87
ber
month
1986
s

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102

123

Tariff reductions worth

Tariffs, non-tariff measures,
more than $300 billion
"framework" agreements
dollars achieved
The round led to the
creation of WTO, and
extended the range of trade
negotiations, leading to
Tariffs, non-tariff measures,
major reductions in tariffs
rules, services, intellectual
(about 40%) and
property, dispute
agricultural subsidies, an
settlement, textiles,
agreement to allow full
agriculture, creation of
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access fortextilesand
WTO, etc

 Administering WTO trade agreements

Forum for trade negotiations
Handling trade disputes
Monitoring national trade policies
Technical assistance and training for
developing countries
Cooperation with other international
organizations
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 Trade

Without Discrimination
1. Most-favoured-nation (MFN): treating
other people equally
Under the WTO agreements, countries cannot
normally discriminate between their trading
partners. Grant someone a special favour
(such as a lower customs duty rate for one of
their products) and you have to do the same
for all other WTO members.

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2. National treatment: Treating foreigners

and locals equally
Imported and locallyproduced goods should be treated equally
at least after the foreign goods have entered
the market. The same should apply to foreign
and domestic services, and to foreign and
local trademarks, copyrights and patents.

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 Freer trade:

gradually, through negotiation

Lowering trade barriers is one of the most
obvious means of encouraging trade. The
barriers concerned include customs duties (or
tariffs) and measures such as import bans or
quotas that restrict quantities selectively

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Predictability: through binding and transparency

Sometimes, promising not to raise a trade barrier
can be as important as lowering one, because the
promise gives businesses a clearer view of their
future opportunities. With stability and predictability,
investment is encouraged, jobs are created and
consumers can fully enjoy the benefits of
competition choice and lower prices. The
multilateral trading system is an attempt by
governments to make the business environment
stable and predictable.
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 Promoting

fair competition
The WTO is sometimes described as a free
trade institution, but that is not entirely
accurate. The system does allow tariffs and, in
limited circumstances, other forms of
protection. More accurately, it is a system of
rules dedicated to open, fair and undistorted
competition.

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 Encouraging

development and economic

reform.
The WTO system contributes to development.
On the other hand, developing countries need
flexibility in the time they take to implement
the systems agreements. And the agreements
themselves inherit the earlier provisions of
GATT that allow for special assistance and
trade concessions for developing countries.

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Ministerial
Conference

Dispute
Settlement
Body

The
Committee
on T&D and
T&E

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Goods Council

General
Council

Intellectual
Property
Council

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Trade Policy
Review Body

Services
Council

19

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-:

exemption of export profit from income tax under
section 80-HHC of the Income Tax
subsidies on cost of freight on export shipments of
certain products like fruits, vegetables and floricultural
products.

a.
b.

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a.

b.

Indias basic objectives in the ongoing negotiations

are:
To protect its food and livelihood security concerns
and to protect all domestic policy measures taken for
poverty alleviation, rural development and rural
employment.
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.
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The Agreement requires all WTO Members to notify the

TRIMs that are inconsistent with the provisions of the
Agreement, and to eliminate them after the expiry of the
transition period provided in the Agreement. Transition
periods of two years in the case of developed countries,
five years in the case of developing countries and seven
years in the case of LDCs, from the date of entry into
force of the Agreement (i.e. 1stJanuary 1995) are
provided in the Agreement.

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As per the provisions of Art. 5.1 of the TRIMs Agreement India

had notified three trade related investment measures as
inconsistent 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 TRIMs
agreement 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 of
2001 in Doha on November 14, 2001. It reaffirmed flexibility of TRIPS member
states 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:

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.
(a)

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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 TRIPS

Agreement to make permanent the temporary waiver contained in the August 30
WTO Decision, which itself fulfilled the requirement of para.6 of the Doha
Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of November 14, 2001.
This decision created a mechanism to allow WTO members to issue compulsory
licenses to export generic versions of patented medicines to countries with
insufficient 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 30
August 2003 on the Implementation of Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on
the
TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, and to an amendment to the TRIPS
Agreement replacing its provisions. In this regard, we welcome the work that has
taken place in the Council for TRIPS and the Decision of the General Council of 6
December 2005 on an Amendment of the TRIPS Agreement."
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The amendment, the first ever to the TRIPS Agreement, was circulated to WTO
members for formal adoption. A deadline of December 1, 2007 was set for
members to accept the permanent amendment. For the amendment to be put into
effect, at least two-thirds of members must formally adopt it.
On November 30, 2007 Peter Mandelson, the then European Union's Trade
Commissioner, announced that the European Union formally accepted the World
Trade Organization -approved protocol of December 2005, amending the TRIPS
Agreement. However, in order for the decision to have legal effect, two-thirds of
the WTO's 151 Members are required to ratify the agreement. The European
Union's acceptance only brings the number to 41.
In 2008 a decision was made to extend the deadline for accepting the TRIPS
agreement amendment. The deadline has been extended until 31 December 2009
or "such later date as may be decided by the Ministerial Conference."
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India, as a developing economy, has been benefitted

being a founding member of the World trade
Organization. The country at large has seen many
significant changes which have taken place after the
formation of WTO. There are some issues which are
yet to be sorted out with the WTO and but by and
large things are falling in shape for the Indian
Economy.

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Dispute settlement at the WTO:The developing country

experience by Gregory C.Shaffer,Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz
Intellectual Property Rights,the WTO and developing
countries:The trips by Carlos M.Correa
WTO,Agriculture and developing countries:The case of
Ethiopia by Michiel keyzer,Max Merbis,Geert Overbosch
Self-enforcing Trade:Developing countries and WTO dispute
Settlement
Negotiating Trade:Developing countries in the WTO and
NAFTA by John S.Odell
WTO law and Developing Countries by George
A,Bermann,Petros C.Mavroidis

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