The WTO and the World Trade System

This chapter provides a broad overview of the World Trade Organization&s;s (WTO) core components. It examines how the global distribution of power shapes the creation and evolution of international trade systems. In 1995, governments folded the GATT into the newly established WTO, where it continues to provide many of the rules governing international trade relations. The rules at the center of the world trade system were thus established initially in 1947 and have been gradually revised, amended, and extended ever since. The chapter provides understanding of WTO bargaining by examining the evolution of negotiations in the Doha Round. It then explores some contemporary challenges to the WTO, focusing on the rise of developing countries as a powerful bloc within the organization and the rise of civil society groups as powerful critics of the organization from the outside. The chapter concludes by examining regional trade arrangements, considered by many the greatest current challenge to the WTO.

Business · Economics · International economics · International trade · Global trade and economics · World Trade Organization Law