240th Meeting - Tuesday, November 11th 2003
"The WTO in Cancun - The negotiations and what went wrong?"
A talk by Dr. Heike Löschmann
Present: An audience of 22.
Dr. Heike Löschmann is director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF),
Thailand and South East Asia Regional Office.
Introduction to Dr. Heike Löschmann's talk:
The WTO negotiations and the failure in Cancun
The forerunner to the WTO was GATT, the Global Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs. GATT was created in 1948 as a post-war arrangement, but it was not
long before it became an unofficial, de facto international organisation,
which was both a set of trade rules, negotiated in many different rounds,
and an informal institution. The Uruguay round, from 1986 until 1994, was
the last and largest GATT round, which ultimately led to the creation of the
WTO.
Whereas GATT had mainly dealt with trade in goods, the WTO and its
agreements now cover trade in services, and also inventions, creations and
designs - intellectual property. These new areas are covered in the GATS,
Global Agreement on Trade and Services, and TRIPS, Trade Related
Intellectual Property Rights, agreements.
A fascinating talk in which Heike divulged much information on the
behind-the-scenes negotiation process, where all of the important decisions
are made.
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