Here is a compilation of term papers on the ‘World Trade Organisation (WTO)’. Find paragraphs, long and short term papers on the ‘World Trade Organisation (WTO)’ especially written for school and college students.
Term Paper on the WTO
Term Paper Contents:
- Term Paper on the Introduction to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
- Term Paper on the Major Provisions Implemented by the WTO
- Term Paper on the Health and Safety Measures by the WTO
- Term Paper on the Reformation of least Developed and Food Importing Countries by WTO
- Term Paper on Uruguay Round Agreement and Developing Countries
- Term Paper on the Doha Ministerial Conference (2001) by WTO
Term Paper # 1. Introduction to the World Trade Organisation (WTO):
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The WTO will be directed by the Ministerial conference that will meet at least once every 2 years and its regular business will be seen by a General council.
Specific Functions of WTO:
The WTO has five specific functions:
1. The WTO shall facilitate the administration and implementation of multilateral and plurilateral trade agreements which together make up the WTO.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
2. The WTO shall provide the forum for multilateral trade negotiations.
3. The WTO shall administer the “understanding on rules and procedures governing the settlement of disputes.”
4. The WTO shall administer the Trade Review Mechanism.
5. The WTO shall cooperate with other international institutions involved in global economic policy.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The General Council of the WTO will serve four main functions:
1. To supervise on regular basis the operations of the revised agreements and ministerial declarations relating to (i) goods (ii) services and (iii) TRIPS.
2. To act as a Dispute settlement body.
3. To serve as a Trade Review Mechanism.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
4. To establish Goods council, Services Council, and TRIPS council as subsidiary bodies.
The WTO is based in Geneva, Switzerland. It is a more powerful body with enlarged functions than the GATT. It is envisaged to perform a major role in world economic affairs. To become a member of the WTO, a country must accept the results of the Uruguay Rounds.
Term Paper # 2. Major Provisions Implemented by the WTO:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The major provisions of the Final Act relate to agriculture, sanitary measures, helping least developed countries, Textiles, TRIPS, GATS and antidumping measures.
A brief description of each is as follows:
Agriculture:
The Uruguay Round agreement relating to agriculture is made up of several elements which seeks to reform trade in agriculture and provide the basis for market oriented policies, thereby improving economic cooperation for importing and exporting countries alike.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The important aspects of Uruguay Round agreement on agriculture includes:
1. Tariffication:
Tariffication means the replacement of existing non-tariff restrictions on trade such as import quotas by such tariffs as would provide substantially the same level of protection.
2. Tariff Binding:
From the first year of the Agreement’s implementation, nearly all border protection is to be bound by tariffs which are to be no higher than the tariff equivalent of the protection levels prevailing in the base periods.
3. Tariff Cuts:
Industrial countries are then to reduce their tariff bindings by an average of 36% within 6 years (from 1995), while all the developing countries are required to reduce tariffs by an average of 24% over a period of 10 years. Least developed countries need not make any commitment for reduction of tariffs on agricultural products.
4. Reduction in Subsidies and Domestic Support:
The Uruguay Round agreement deals with three categories of subsidies:
(i) Prohibited Subsidies – Use of domestic instead of imported goods.
(ii) Actionable Subsidies – Those that have adverse effects another member country.
(iii) Non-Actionable Subsidies – For providing industrial research and development activity to disadvantaged regions.
The Uruguay Round agreement has brought the domestic support policies also under the multilateral trade discipline. However, domestic support measures that have a minimum effect on trade are exempted.
Term Paper # 3. Health and Safety Measures by the WTO:
The agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures concerns the following points:
(i) The application of food safety and animal and plant health regulations.
(ii) It recognises the Government’s right to take sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
(iii) It stipulates that these measures should be based on science.
(iv) These measures should be applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, plant or animal life or health.
(v) These should not arbitrarily discriminate among members where identical or similar conditions prevail.
Term Paper # 4. Reformation of least Developed and Food Importing Countries by WTO:
During the Reform programme, the least developed countries and the net food importing countries may experience negative effects with regard to supplies of food items on reasonable terms and conditions. Such countries need special assistance.
For this purpose the following steps are suggested:
(i) A special ministerial decision was taken which calls for appropriate mechanisms relating to the:
(a) Availability of food
(b) Provision of basic food stuffs in full grant form
(c) Aid for agricultural development.
(ii) This decision also refers to the possibility of assistance from the IMF and the World Bank with regard to the short term financing & commercial food imports.
(iii) It was decided that a committee on agriculture will follow up the decisions.
Textiles and Clothing:
In the textiles and clothing sector, much of the trade is currently subject to bilateral quota negotiations under the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA). The purpose of the agreement on textiles and clothing is to secure the integration of this sector into the mainstream of the WTO. But it was decided that integration shall take place in stages. All MFA restrictions in force on 31st December 1994 would be carried over into the final act and maintained until such time as the restrictions are removed or the products integrated into WTO.
TRIPS:
One of the most controversial outcomes of the Uruguay Round is the Agreement on Trade Related aspects of intellectual property rights including trade in counterfeit goods (TRIPS).
Intellectual Property rights may be defined as information with a commercial value.
IPRs may be defined as composition of ideas, inventions and creative expression plus the public willingness to bestow the status of property and give their owners the right to exclude others from access to or use of protected subject matter.
The Uruguay Round agreement on TRIPS covers several intellectual properties:
(i) Copyright and related rights
(ii) Trademark
(iii) Geographical indications
(iv) Patents
(v) Layout designs (topographies)
(vi) Undisclosed information
The WTO agreement recognises that widely varying standards in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights and the lack of multilateral disciplines dealing with international trade in counterfeit goods have been a growing source of tension in the international economic relations.
With this end in view, the following steps are suggested:
(i) Application of GATT principles and those of relevant international intellectual property agreements.
(ii) The provision of adequate intellectual property rights.
(iii) The provision of adequate enforcement measures for these rights.
(iv) Multilateral dispute settlement
(v) Transitional implementation arrangement.
The TRIPS agreements contain three parts:
Part I – Provision and principles.
Part II – Different Kinds of intellectual property rights.
Part III – Enforcement.
GATS:
The General agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is the first step of multilaterally agreed and legally enforceable rules and disciplines ever negotiated to cover international trade in services.
The agreement covers three elements:
(i) A framework of general rules and disciplines.
(ii) Annexes addressing special conditions relating to individual sectors.
(iii) The sectors covered are movement of natural persons, financial services, telecommunication and air transport services.
(iv) National schedule of market access commitments.
Because of the special characteristics and the socio-economic and political implications of certain services, they have been generally subject to various types of national restrictions.
A council for trade in services overseas the operation of the agreement. The GATS which extends multilateral rules and disciplines to services is regarded as a landmark achievement of the Uruguay Round, although it has achieved only little in terms of immediate liberalisation.
Anti-Dumping Measures:
GATT allows members to apply Anti-dumping measures. Such measures can be imposed on imports if such dumped imports cause injury to a domestic industry in the territory of the importing members. These measures may take the form of duties or undertakings on pricing by the exporters etc. Some detailed rules were negotiated during the Tokyo Round and the same were revised in the Uruguay Round.
The WTO agreement provides for the following:
1. Greater clarity in the method of determining that a product is dumped.
2. Additional criteria for determining the injury caused to a domestic industry by the dumped product.
3. Procedure to be followed in initiating and conducting anti-dumping investigations.
4. Rules on implementation and duration of anti-dumping measures.
5. Clarification of the role of Dispute Settlement Penal in disputes relating to anti-dumping actions taken by WTO members.
An Evaluation of the Uruguay Round:
The Uruguay Round was by far the most complex and controversial one. The inclusion of new areas like TRIPs, TRIMs, services and its attempts to liberalise agricultural trade and the elimination of Non Traffic Barriers have increased the complexities.
The WTO has proved to be totally different from its predecessor GATT on the following ways:
1. As compared to GATT, WTO has been armed with adequate power by which disputes between trading countries have been settled. Even U.S.A. was booked on one or more than one cases.
2. The GATT negotiating rounds took place once in a decade or so. But at Singapore, just 2 years after the conclusion of Uruguay Round, the WTO concluded an Information Technology Agreement and launched studies on several other important subjects.
3. The old leisurely pace of GATT is gone. Instead, there is enormous pressure to compress into the next few years what used to take decades to complete.
4. The Agenda of the WTO is expanding and the USA is trying to push everything under the ambit of WTO.
5. The most favoured Nation rule is advantageous to all member countries.
WTO serves a major purpose as a rule making body for trade liberalisation. It should not be expanded into a sort of World Government covering every economic subject under the sun and then using the threat of trade sanctions to bring about a new world order.
Term Paper # 5. Uruguay Round Agreement and Developing Countries:
As in the case of the previous rounds, the developing countries, in general, are dissatisfied with the outcome at the UR round.
Following are some of the reasons for the dissatisfation:
1. Some of the areas like TRIPs, TRIMs and services have been very sensitive as far as the developing countries are concerned as the UR agreement requires these countries to lower the protection against competition from the unequal developed economies.
However, the Uruguay Round also gives special considerations to developing countries, particularly those with balance of payments problems.
2. One of the major areas of disappointment for the developing countries is trade in textiles. Textiles are one of their most important export items but developed countries have been following a very restrictive import policy.
However, it has been decided that the MFA will be phased out in stages over a period of 10 years and major part of the liberalisation will take place only towards the end of the transitional period.
3. Developing countries are very apprehensive about the proposal to liberalise trade in services. But so far the service sector has been left unaffected.
The effect of Uruguay Round is not the same on all the countries. One measure may be favourable for one developed country and it may be unfavourable for another developed country. It is therefore quite natural that conflicts of interest have occurred both among developed and developing countries. No country is entirely pleased with the Uruguay Round proposals because all of the countries have a sense of shared dissatisfactions.
One of the achievements of Uruguay Round is the making of the rules and regulations more transparent, thus making trade harassment and unilateral actions more difficult.
Implications for India:
After the Uruguay Round, India was one of the First 76 Governments that became member of the WTO on its first day. Different views have been expressed in support and against our country becoming a member of the WTO.
Favourable Factors:
1. Benefits from reduction of tariffs on exports.
2. Improved prospects for agricultural exports because the prices of agricultural products in the world market will increase due to reduction in domestic subsidies and barriers to trade.
3. Likely increase in the exports of textiles and clothing due to the phasing out of MFA by 2005.
4. Advantages from greater security and predictability of the international trading system.
5. Compulsions imposed on us to be competitive in the world market.
Unfavourable Factors:
1. Tariff reduction on goods of exports interest to India is very small.
2. Less prospects of increase in agricultural exports due to the limited extent of agricultural liberalisation.
3. There will be hardly any liberalisation of our textile exports during the next 10 years.
4. India will be under pressure to liberalise the services industries.
5. There will be only marginal liberalisation to the movement of labour services in which we are competitive.
6. Increased outflows of foreign exchange due to commitments undertaken in the fields of TRIPS, TRIMS and services.
7. Technological dependence on foreign firms will increase as the R&D are required to take advantages of Uruguay Round agreement may not be undertaken on adequate scale due to paucity of funds.
8. Only a few large firms or transnational corporations may benefit and smaller firms may disappear.
9. Increasing intrusion in our domestic space in TRIPs, TRIMs and services and agriculture.
10. The Uruguay Round has paved way for similar other intrusions in future through linkage between trade, environment, labour standard and treatment of foreign capital.
11. Trend towards neo-protectionism in developed countries against our exports.
To conclude, we may say that WTO membership is going to be beneficial to us in terms in global market thrown open to our goods and services. We must know how to take advantage of this situation.
We should try to strengthen our position to sell our products abroad. For that we have to improve the quality of goods and services, cut down costs and wastages and improve our competitive strength.
Evaluation of WTO:
WTO has been in action for about nine years now.
During this period of time, the WTO has proved that it is very different from its predecessor, GATT, in the following ways:
(i) GATT did not have any powers, whereas WTO with its dispute settlement mechanism has been an outstanding success. WTO has brought to book even USA in several cases.
(ii) GATT negotiating rounds took place once in a decade or so. What used to take decades to complete has been done in a few years by the WTO.
Following are the achievements of WTO in the short period it has been in existence:
1. WTO has helped in making greater market orientation a general rule.
2. Tariff based protection has become the rule.
3. Restrictive measures which were being used for balance of payments purposes have declined markedly.
4. WTO has brought services trade into the multilateral system. Many countries are opening their markets for trade and investment either unilaterally or through regional or multilateral negotiations.
5. Many underdeveloped countries have promoted economic growth in their countries. They have undergone radical trade, exchange and domestic reforms which have improved the efficiency of resource use and opened new investment opportunities.
6. Bilateralism has been, to a great extent, placed under control by the extension of WTO provisions to services, TRIPS and TRIMS and by the unified dispute settlement mechanism, in which the possibility of unilaterally blocking the adoption of panel decisions no longer exists.
7. The Trade Policy Review Mechanism has created a process of continuous monitoring of trade policy developments, which by promoting greater transparency has assisted in the process of liberalisation and reform.
The WTO however, has still to make progress on the following issues:
1. The trade reform process is incomplete in many countries, some tariff peaks remain negotiations are still proceeding in various areas, notably in basic telecommunications and financial services.
2. There have been at least some reversals in the overall liberalisation process in some developing countries examples may be increasing of antidumping measures, selective tariff increases and investment related measures.
3. The combination of globalisation and technological change creates a premium on high skill as against low skill. Concerns have been raised that this will amount to growing social divisions.
4. The major share of the benefits of the WTO has gone to the countries of the North. WTO has been much more beneficial to the developed countries where the benefits of free trade accrue primarily to the underdeveloped countries; the progress has been much slower.
5. The WTO has not done much for the development of non-tariff barriers to imports from the underdeveloped countries such as anti-dumping duties.
6. “One size fits all” approach is increasingly getting embedded in the WTO rules and disciplines. The policies and rules appropriate or advantageous to the industrialised world are getting established as common rules to be obeyed by the developing countries as well. As a result, the multilateral trade rules are increasingly becoming a codification of the policies, perceptions, laws and regulations of the industrialised countries.
7. As a result of pressures resulting from WTO, the interests of international trade, which are primarily the interests of transnational corporations, take precedence over local concerns and policies even if such a course exposes the local population to serious health and security risks.
8. All the WTO members are not equally integrated in the multilateral system.
9. As brought out in the last Ministerial Meeting at Mexico in September 2003, the implementation related issues are becoming a source of serious concern.
The implementation issues cover a whole range of demands.
The issues requiring WTO attention relate to:
(i) TRIPS
(ii) TRIMS
(iii) Anti-dumping
(iv) Movement of natural persons
(v) Agriculture
(vi) Textiles
(vii) Industrial tariffs including peak tariffs
(viii) Services
(ix) Rules to protect investments
(x) Competition policy
(xi) Transparency in government procurement
(xii) Trade facilitation
WTO has now become a forum for perpetual negotiations on newer and newer subjects and for using trade rules to establish standards and enforce compliance even in non-trade areas. Everything now seems, to require the hand of WTO, be it foreign investment, environmental or labour standards, child labour, good governance or human rights.
However, efforts should be made to see that WTO is not expanded into a sort of world government covering every economic subject under the sun and then using the threat of trade sanctions to bring about a new World Order.
Term Paper # 6.
Doha Ministerial Conference (2001) by WTO:
The Doha ministerial conference under the auspices of the WTO had a draft prepared by its Director General Mr. Mike Moore, which intended to begin a new round of negotiations. This round has been temporarily named as the Qatar Round. This round began in January 2002 and is expected to end latest by January 1, 2005. This round of negotiations will cover a wide range of subjects including opening up of trade in agriculture, services, industrial products and environment.
The World Bank has estimated that launching a new round of market opening talks coupled with related reforms could add about $2.8 trillion to global income by 2015, a decade after the round is expected to end.
An important feature of this round is that even if underdeveloped countries differ on specific issues, they can make a difference if even a few of them stand firm. Both small and large UDCs will no longer accept decisions taken behind closed doors by a group of select countries. Group of 21 developing countries (G-21) led by India at concern meeting in September 2003, China and Brazil, effectively stalled all moves of US and Europe to secure concessions for themselves that were perceived to be harmful to the interests of the developing countries. This round of talks was officially declared to be a failure.
It has been stressed that the developing countries should call for the inclusion of the following items in the agenda of the conference:
1. The Issue of Technology Transfer:
When there can be multilateral agreements on trade and investment and trade and competition policy, there should be one on trade and technology transfer.
2. Non-Tariff Barriers:
The issue of non-tariff barriers should be taken up to ensure protection against willful measures and damage countries.
3. Technical Barriers:
Technical barriers should be considered because raising technology standards without facilitating technology transfer may create problem for developing countries.
4. Commodity Prices:
Lack of stability in commodity prices has been at the root of economic instability in many developing countries.
5. Review:
Review of existing agreements particularly on antidumping, subsidies and countervailing measures should also be on the agenda.
6. Regional Trading Agreements:
Review of regional trading agreements that are creating problems of trade diversion should also be considered.
7. Special and Differential Treatment:
Applicability and effectiveness of special and differential treatment for the developing countries should also be on the agenda.