World Trade Organization: Rules and procedures for solving the litigation

The WTO was founded in 1995 as one of the outcomes of the Uruguay round of multilateral trade talks. The Uruguay round, which concluded in 1994, after eight years of complex and sometimes contentious negotiations, was a land mark in the history of trading system. Agriculture and textiles became subject to stronger multilateral disciplines, and the trading system was extended to include intellectual property and trade in services. The WTO establishes the rules of the trade policy game for its members, which increasingly include developing countries (Membership at the time of writing stood at 144, but more than 50 developing countries have yet to join the WTO). A good understanding of how the WTO works and what it does in a necessary condition for maximizing the benefits of membership. The ability to use the WTO system is function of many factors. Among the necessary conditions are that the countries participate in the negotiation on the rules of the game and that they use the WTO in a proactive manner. What is most needed in the standards area from a development perspective is a framework to support national capacity building and improve the design of international standards.