World Trade Organization: A Review of Negotiations and Objectives

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World Trade Organization
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Introduction
World Trade Organization (WTO)
This is an intergovernmental organization which is tasked at regulating international trade
between member states. It was established on the 1st of January 1995 under what is known as the
Marrakesh agreement. This agreement brought together 124 countries in April 1994 that replaced
the not so popular General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which was stated in 1948. It
is the largest trading organization or economic organization in the world. It deals with regulation
of goods and services and sometimes intellectual properties between countries. The countries
that are participating have to provide a framework for dispute resolution and negotiation of trade
agreements. This process is aimed at enforcing the member states participation and adherence to
WTO agreements. The agreements were signed by government representatives which are then
ratified by individual parliaments (Fan, and Yeaple, 2018.).
Aims and objectives
WTO prevents protectionism a practice that dwarfs growth in countries’ economies Brandt, L.,
Van (Biesebroeck, Wang, and Zhang, 2017). There is improved negotiations arrangements
among the individual members. The members also reduce the costs of doing business by
removing the business volatility. These are all general specifics of WTO, however, there are
specific benefits which includes;
1) WTO must treat each other with equality which means no one is favored than the
other during trade.
2) They have no or lower trade barriers with each other

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3) Helps to trade with majority of the countries which is two-thirds of the total countries
in question.
Literature Review
Why negotiations between some countries and WTO have not been successful
Some of the countries have not been successful while negotiating with the WTO. Examples are
the developing countries. The Geneva based arbiter has had multiple round table talks since the
end of world war two. However, the Doha round table talks which was to focus on developing
countries joining the global market place and boost their economies have not lead to any succeed
in talks. The round table was launched in the year 2001 and up to now it has never succeeded in
coming to a conclusive agreement(Fan, and Yeaple, 2018.). The WTO has made it had for
developing countries to negotiate in their own terms and conditions.
What are they negotiating for?
The goal of any trade is to make easy movement of goods and services. In these talks, the goods
and services are supposed to cross national borders with ease (Biesebroeck, Wang, and Zhang,
2017). In this case the tariffs are the ones being discussed on everything from fruits, vegetables,
cars and minerals. It also means restricting the use of subsidies and lowering taxes and regulatory
laws and barriers that affect cross border trade in that affect the cross border trade. Consulting
services such as accounting, banking and intellectual property rules such as copyrights and drugs
are also affected (Baldwin, and Lopez‐Gonzalez, 2015).
The reason why the negotiations haven’t been successful