MH SR - World Trade Organization (WTO)

World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, as a successor of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) signed in 1947.

The main objective of the WTO is to ensure smooth, liberal, predictable and transparent international trade as set in specific rules for international trade and commitments of individual member countries.

The WTO helps the international trading system to be:

without discrimination — a country should not discriminate between its trading partners (most favourite nation); and it should not discriminate between its own and foreign products, services or nationals (national treatment);
freer — barriers being removed through negotiation;
predictable — foreign companies, investors and governments should be confident that trade barriers (including tariffs and non-tariff barriers) should not be raised unilaterally; the maximum tariff rates and the minimum level of market-opening commitments are “bound” in the WTO;
more competitive — discouraging “unfair” practices such as export subsidies and dumping products at below cost to gain market share
more beneficial for less developed countries — giving them more time to adjust, greater flexibility, and special privileges.

The main principles of the WTO are:

Most-favoured-nation (MFN): Under the WTO agreements, countries cannot normally discriminate between their trading partners. Grant someone a special favour (such as a lower customs duty rate for one of their products) and you have to do the same for all other WTO members.
National treatment: Every WTO member should treat foreign and domestic products, producers, services, services providers, trademarks, copyrights, patents etc. equally.

The WTO covers a wide range of rules for trade in agricultural and industrial goods, trade in services (GATS), intellectual property (TRIPS), dispute settlement (DSU), trade policy review (TPR), antidumping, subsidies and countervailing measures, safeguard measures, import licensing, customs valuation, technical barriers to trade (TBT), sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), information technology, electronic commerce, rules of origin and many more issues.

The WTO has 153 members (1.1.2011) and almost 30 more countries would like to enter the organization. Decisions of the WTO are based on consensus.

The Slovak Republic is the founding member of the WTO (1995) and also of the GATT (1947 – as former Czechoslovakia).

The Slovak Republic, as Member of the European Union, taking into account the existence of the common trade policy of the EU and the exclusive competence of the European Commission represents its interests in the Trade Policy Committee of the Council of the European Union. In this Trade Policy Committee the EU Members present their views in order to build a common view of the whole EU and subsequently the European Commission presents this interests in the WTO. WTO issues are also discussed in other councils, such as COREPER, FAC or GAC.

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