These agreements are often called the WTO’s trade rules, and the WTO is often described as “rules-based? a system based on rules. But it’s important to remember that the rules are actually agreements that governments negotiated.

This chapter focuses on the Uruguay Round agreements, which are the basis of the present WTO system. Additional work is also now underway in the WTO. This is the result of decisions taken at Ministerial Conferences, in particular the meeting in Doha, November 2001, when new negotiations and other work were launched. (More on the Doha Agenda, later.)

 

back to top

Six-part broad outline

The table of contents of “The Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations: The Legal Texts?is a daunting list of about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and understandings. In fact, the agreements fall into a simple structure with six main parts: an umbrella agreement (the Agreement Establishing the WTO); agreements for each of the three broad areas of trade that the WTO covers (goods, services and intellectual property); dispute settlement; and reviews of governments?trade policies.

The agreements for the two largest areas ?goods and services ?share a common three-part outline, even though the detail is sometimes quite different.

 They start with broad principles: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) (for goods), and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). (The third area, Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), also falls into this category although at present it has no additional parts.)

 Then come extra agreements and annexes dealing with the special requirements of specific sectors or issues.

 Finally, there are the detailed and lengthy schedules (or lists) of commitments made by individual countries allowing specific foreign products or service-providers access to their markets. For GATT, these take the form of binding commitments on tariffs for goods in general, and combinations of tariffs and quotas for some agricultural goods. For GATS, the commitments state how much access foreign service providers are allowed for specific sectors, and they include lists of types of services where individual countries say they are not applying the “most-favoured-nation?principle of non-discrimination.

Underpinning these are dispute settlement, which is based on the agreements and commitments, and trade policy reviews, an exercise in transparency.

Much of the Uruguay Round dealt with the first two parts: general principles and principles for specific sectors. At the same time, market access negotiations were possible for industrial goods. Once the principles had been worked out, negotiations could proceed on the commitments for sectors such as agriculture and services.

 

 

back to top

Additional agreements

Another group of agreements not included in the diagram is also important: the two “plurilateral?agreements not signed by all members: civil aircraft and government procurement.

 

back to top

Further changes on the horizon, the Doha Agenda

These agreements are not static; they are renegotiated from time to time and new agreements can be added to the package. Many are now being negotiated under the Doha Development Agenda, launched by WTO trade ministers in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001.