Written by: Riddhis Sharma - 26006, Grade IX
Posted on: 20 March, 2023
The World Trade Organization is the only international organization that deals with or forms rules while trading internationally. Many of the World Trade Organization’s agreements have been signed by numerous countries. And its main goal is to provide and facilitate producers , exporters and importers with their business. The World Trade organization is run by the member governments. All important decisions are made by the members as a team or by the ministers who meet every two years. The World Trade Organization’s agreements are long and a bit tangled with each other. But all the documents have some fundamental rules. These principles are the base of the Organization.
The highest decision making body of the organization is the Ministerial conference, held every two years. This conference has all of the world trade organization’s members together. Some of the functions of The World trade organization are that it supervises and provides forums for negotiations and for settling disputes and It supervises the implementation and operation of the Multilateral trade Agreements. Some of the trade principles of the World Trade Organization are:
Non- Discrimination: there should be no difference in trades between any country or nation with equal quality products and services.
Reciprocity : The trades should have mutual respect and mutual benefit for both the parties involved in it .
Binding and Enforceable Commitments: Some commitments made by nations are absolute and need to be fulfilled or else the country may have to compensate the other country for its loss of trade.
Transparency: Any two or more parties involved in trade should be honest and transparent meaning that the party should not involve in any illegal activities or activities out of the commitments.
Safety Values : In some conditions, countries are able to restrict trade. The World Trade Organization’s agreements allow the members to take measures to protect not only the environment but also the public health, animal health and plant health.
The World Trade Organization has different Councils for trades. They are:
Council for trade in Goods
Council For trade-related Aspects of Intellectual property of rights
Council for trade in services
Trade negotiations Committee
The World Trade organization has divided its budget based on their share of international trade. So the top 10 countries with contributions to the Budget of The World Trade Organization are :
United States : 22, 660,405 : 11.59%
China : 19,737,680 : 10.10%
Germany: 13,882,455 : 7.10%
Japan : 7,896,245 : 4.04%
United Kingdom: 7,446,595 : 3.81%
France : 7,440,730 : 3.81%
South Korea : 5,777,025 : 2.96%
Netherlands : 5,745,745 : 2.94%
Hong Kong : 5,427,080 : 2.78%
Italy : 5,096,685 : 2.61%
Others : 94,389,355 : 48.28%
Total : 195,500,000
So my opinion of the World Trade Organization is that it is a very rapidly growing organization that is helping to solve disputes between countries and parties which is pretty good. I think that the organization is doing a good job as the only organization overseeing the rules and regulations of International Trade.
References:
https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/thewto_e.htm
