The achievements of the rules- essays

The achievements of the rules- essays With the end of the Second World War , the United States wanted to give an early boost to trade liberalization and to begin to correct the legacy of protectionist measures which remained in place from the early 1930s. The combined package of trade rules and tariff concessions became known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), first signed in 1947 and entered into force in January 1948. Drawn up by twenty-three countries, the agreement was designed to provide an international forum that encouraged free trade between member states by regulating and reducing tariffs on traded goods and by providing a common mechanism for resolving trade disputes. As a matter of course, the GATT organised a set of rounds, most of them devoted to continuing the process of reducing tariffs and providing rules to govern international trade. The Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT Anti-Dumping Agreement and a section on development. The Tokyo Round during the 1970s was the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that do not take the form of tariffs and to improve the system. The eighth, the Uruguay Round (1986-94), was the last and most extensive of all. It led to the creation of a legal institution, the World Trade Organization (WTO), in order to replace the provisional GATT, and a new set of agreements. In order to assess the achievements of the rules-based system of world trade over the past years, this essay will first deal with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and its weaknesses, then with the GATT rounds and its both positive and negative achievements, and finally focuse on the changing international environment that occurred since the last decade. As highlighted by N. Grimwade (2000, pp.323), the main pillar of the GATT system was the principle of non-discrimination, which underlie two principles : the Most Favoured Nation (MNF) treatment clause and the system of national treatment. The...