3.13 Development of the world trading system
Before summarising Part B, read the following pages from Hill (2005) and the readings for a review of the development of GATT and WTO, including a brief discussion of the most recent round of WTO global trade negotiations in Doha
In your text
Hill 2005, Chapter 5, pp. 194-207.
Reading 3.4
Legrain, P. 2001, 'WTO is a friend of the poor', The Age , 4 August, p. 7.
Reading 3.5
Hong, X. 2001, 'What will WTO bring to China ?', Sunday Times ,
1 April, p. 51.
As of 13 October 2004 , the WTO had a membership of 148 countries that together account for over 90% of world trade. The role of the WTO is to deal with the rules of trade between countries. A visit to the website of the WTO at http://www.wto.org is worthwhile because it contains many resources. For example, you can find out if your home country is a member and if so, the date it joined the WTO. In addition, the website has an excellent explanation of the role of the WTO available in PDF, HTML, video, or an interactive version.
Activity 3.8
- Explain in three sentences the differences between GATT and the WTO.
- Visit the WTO website, download, and read the following two articles:
- 10 benefits of the WTO trading system ; and
- 10 common misunderstandings about the WTO .
These downloads will assist in rounding out the explanation of the role of the WTO.
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