World Trade Organization

Today I will start a series of articles about the World Trade Organization (WTO) based on my notes. I hope this will shed some light to those readers who know little about this particular organization and the world trade as a whole.
The history of WTO starts after the World War II when along with other organizations, such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), International Trade Organization was about to be created, but instead a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was signed. So, GATT was signed by 23 nations in Geneva in 1947 and came in force on 1 January 1948. GATT was a de facto International Organization. WTO came into force on 1 January 1995. The WTO Secretariat is in Geneva, Switzerland and is headed by Director General.
In total GATT/WTO held 9 negotiation rounds from 1947 to 1994. The main objective of negotiation rounds is to decrease trade barriers among the WTO Members. In chronological order those rounds are:

1) Geneva - April 1947
2) Annecy - April 1949
3) Torquay - September 1950
4) Geneva II - January 1956
5) Dillon - September 1960
6) Kennedy - May 1964
7) Tokyo - September 1973
8) Uruguay - September 1986
9) Doha - November 2001

The main objectives of WTO include:
- Increase of standards of living
- Attainment of full employment
- The growth of real income and effective demand
- The expansion of production of and trade in goods and services
- Preservation of the environment and needs of developing countries
- Sustainable economic development

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