8. Compare the wto and the gatt.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was signed in 1947 by 23 countries and entered into force in the 1^st January 1948, is a multilateral agreement regulating trade among countries. According to its preamble, the purpose of the GATT is the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."The GATT functioned de facto as an organization, conducting eight rounds of talks addressing various trade issues and resolving international trade disputes. GATT terminated on the 31^st December 1994.

The WTO began life on 1 January 1995, but its trading system is half a century older. Since 1948, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had provided the rules for the system. The last and largest GATT round, was the Uruguay Round which lasted from 1986 to 1994 and led to the WTO’s creation. Whereas GATT had mainly dealt with trade in goods, the WTO and its agreements now cover trade in services, and in traded inventions, creations and designs (intellectual property). The WTO was born out of negotiations, and everything the WTO does is the result of negotiations.

The WTO agreements are lengthy and complex because they are legal texts covering a wide range of activities. They deal with: agriculture, textiles and clothing, banking, telecommunications, government purchases, industrial standards and product safety, food sanitation regulations, intellectual property, and much more. But a number of simple, fundamental principles run throughout all of these documents. These principles are the foundation of the multilateral trading system.

The World Trade Organization is not a simple extension of GATT; on the contrary, it completely replaces its predecessor and has a very different character. Among the principal differences are the following:

1) Nature. GATT was a set of rules, a multilateral agreement, with no institutional foundation, only a small associated secretariat which had its origins in the attempt to establish an International Trade Organization in the 1940s. The WTO is a permanent institution with its own secretariat and charter.

2) Type of membership. WTO has members while GATT had only contracting parties.

3) Scope. The GATT rules applied to trade in goods. The WTO Agreement covers trade in goods, trade in services and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.

4) Approach. Whilst the GATT was a multilateral instrument, a series of new agreements were adopted during the Tokyo Round on a plurilateral-that is, selective-basis, causing a fragmentation of the multilateral trading system. The WTO has been adopted, and accepted by its Members, as a single undertaking: the agreements which constitute the WTO are all multilateral, and therefore involve commitments for the entire membership of the organization.

5) Dispute settlement. The WTO dispute settlement system has specific time limits and is therefore faster than the GATT system; it operates more automatically, thus ensuring less blockages than in the old GATT; and it has a permanent appellate body to review findings by dispute settlement panels. There are also more detailed rules on the process of the implementation of findings.