World Trade Organization Case

T he World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international body that provides the framework for the behavior of international trade in goods and services whilst promoting and enforcing the provisions of trade laws, policies and regulations. Mainly, this framework is a set of agreements of which is acted on by members of the WTO to enforce rights and obligations and disciplines governments or even enterprises, alongside of having the authority to administer and police substantial free trade agreements with overseeing world trade practices and settling trade disputes among member states. Members can submit trade disputes to the WTO where a dispute panel composed of WTO officials serves as arbitrator. Members can also appeal this panel's rulings to a WTO appellate body whose verdicts are ultimate. Disputes must be resolved within the time perimeters set by WTO rules.

The preface of the Agreement Establishing the WTO states that members should conduct their trade and economic relations with a vision to "raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand, and expanding the production of and trade in goods and services, while allowing for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the environment and to enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and concerns at different levels of development." Stated by Pascal Lamy the Director-General of the WTO "The World Trade Organization is the international organization whose primary purpose is to open trade for the benefit of all."

In the relatively short time since the World Trade Organization (WTO) was founded, both the institution itself and the vast complex set of rules it administers have generated enormous debate controversy, both in meeting rooms of legislatures, in the press, and on the streets of countries around the world. interestingly, discussions in and about the WTO have tended to mirror not only the trade-related concerns of the world today but also concerns about a wide variety of the other issues whose relationship to the WTO is still being defined.

From one perspective, the WTO is a scheme of trading rules; from another, it is a forum to execute those rules and to negotiate new ones. As an intergovernmental institution with a broad membership and a wide authorization, the WTO's ultimate success or failure will depend heavily on the effectiveness of those who guide it, rather than those who make demands upon it. But to appreciate fully the importance of, and the potential for, the WTO to make a positive contribution to the well-being of the world requires more than a casual understanding of what the WTO is and is not, its experiences to date, and its possibilities