WTO and Reform proposals

Essay by tkbmmxUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, June 2007

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Term paperPOLT 1505WTOTable of contentsIntroduction 3WTO's Institutional Capacity: Need for Reform 3Reform proposals 5Problems with WTO decision-making process for the developing 6 countries.

WTO's Role for the Developing Countries: What to do? 8Conclusion: Meeting global Challenges 9Bibliography 10IntroductionUntil the end of 1994, there was no multilateral or international organization that dealt with trade issues between countries. For almost 50 years the international trading system had functioned without such an organization. All changed in the 1994, when contradicting earlier gloomy forecasts, the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations under the GATT ended not only with considerable progress in strengthening the international trading system, but also an agreement to found the World Trade Organization.

While considerable attention was given to the substantive achievements and challenges arising out of the Uruguay Round agreement, little attention was paid to challenges facing the WTO as an international organization.

In this paper I attempt to outline some of the internal as well as the external challenges of the WTO.

Most importantly I will examine WTO's institutional capacity and to what extent there is a need for the institutional reform.

Secondly, I will develop on the developing countries and how far WTO alone is adapted to deal with increasingly pressing issues of poverty.

Conclusion will include the reflection on globalization and the increasing need for the international cooperation between governments as well between organizations, and how national interest should incorporate more global concerns.

WTO's Institutional capacity: Need for ReformThe collapse of the WTO Ministeral Conference in Seattle has been ascribed to various circumstances, which range from conspiracies formed around American Presidential politics, to the impact of a wave of anger against the globalization and its consequences. However, the one point upon which there was considerable agreement among WTO members is that the Organization's method of cooperation has...