World Trade Organization (WTO) WATCH_________________________________________________



This section will mainly be discussing the issues of WTO, all its conferences, conventions, and coming events.

From here we give a brief presentation about WTO and how it started, and what came later on from its politics.

WTO supporters and promoters say that WTO was founded to bring welfare and prosperity to all nations, including the social, economic, the academic, technological, and other aspects of life.

But the current trends show a contradiction of all these aims and goals. After ten years since the WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and five Ministerial WTO meetings, results show that a gap has been continuously increasing between the rich and the poor in the World. The gap has been enhanced regarding the tools of production, the growth rates, the per capita incomes, access to markets…. Multinational organizations have taken a greater role in shaping and policies in the global economy of today and have increasingly impacted the negotiations process within the WTO. These conditions are often leading to increasing the poverty and marginalization several sections and groups in the developing countries, which cannot offer its citizens and industries enough subsidies to support them in the competition processes. This is especially impacting farmers, women, and youth. All these factors are creating more poverty in our world, especially in the developing countries. You can know more about the policies promoted and negotiations led by the WTO on its website: www.wto.org

ANND Position Paper on WTO Negotioans [En] :: [Ar]

WTO in Brief:_________________________________________________

The WTO is the only international organization dealing with the global rules of trade between nations and the structure managing the largest amounts of trade exchange in the World today. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smooth, predictable and as free as possible.

The WTO claims that its aim is assurance; whereby consumers enjoy a greater choice of products and services and producers know that they can enjoy secure supplies and raw materials and know that foreign markets will remain open to them.

The WTO decision-making process is based on consensus among all member countries and its agreements have to be ratified by members' parliaments. Trade friction is channeled into the WTO's dispute settlement process where the focus is on interpreting agreements and commitments, and ensuring that countries' trade policies conform to them. That way, the risk of disputes spilling over into political or military conflict is reduced.

The WTO members negotiate agreements on Agriculture, Services, Intellectual Property Rights, Access of Non-Agricultural Products, Trade Facilitation, Regional Agreements, and others. These agreements are the legal binding rules for international commerce and they also bind governments to keep their trade policies within agreed limits.