Accession process[edit] WTO accession progress: Members (including dual-representation with the European Union) Draft Working Party Report or Factual Summary adopted Goods and/or Services offers submitted Memorandum on Foreign Trade Regime (FTR) submitted Observer, negotiations to start later or no Memorandum on FTR submitted Frozen procedures or no negotiations in the last 3 years No official interaction with the WTO A country wishing to accede to the WTO submits an application to the General Council, and has to describe all aspects of its trade and economic policies that have a bearing on WTO agreements.[64] The application is submitted to the WTO in a memorandum which is examined by a working party open to all interested WTO Members.[65] After all necessary background information has been acquired, the working party focuses on issues of discrepancy between the WTO rules and the applicants international and domestic trade policies and laws. The working party determines the terms and conditions of entry into the WTO for the applicant nation, and may consider transitional periods to allow countries some leeway in complying with the WTO rules.[60] The final phase of accession involves bilateral negotiations between the applicant nation and other working party members regarding the concessions and commitments on tariff levels and market access for goods and services. The new members commitments are to apply equally to all WTO members under normal non-discrimination rules, even though they are negotiated bilaterally.[64] When the bilateral talks conclude, the working party sends to the general council or ministerial conference an accession package, which includes a summary of all the working party meetings, the Protocol of Accession (a draft membership treaty), and lists (schedules) of the member-to-bes commitments. Once the general council or ministerial conference approves of the terms of accession, the applicants parliament must ratify the Protocol of Accession before it can become a member.[66] Some countries may have faced tougher and a much longer accession process due to challenges during negotiations with other WTO members, such as Vietnam, whose negotiations took more than 11 years before it became official member in January 2007.[67]The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948.[5] The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants adherence to WTO agreements, which are signed by representatives of member governments[6]:fol.9–10 and ratified by their parliaments.[7] Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994). The organization is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on addressing the needs of developing countries. As of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained uncertain: the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete.[8] The conflict between free trade on industrial goods and services but retention of protectionism on farm subsidies to domestic agricultural sector (requested by developed countries) and the substantiation of the international liberalization of fair trade on agricultural products (requested by developing countries) remain the major obstacles. These points of contention have hindered any progress to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result of this impasse, there has been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements signed.[9] As of July 2012, there were various negotiation groups in the WTO system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of stalemate.[10] talhajamal
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 11:01:53 +0000
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