While THE GATT was a set of rules agreed upon by nations, the WTO is an intergovernmental organization with its own headquarters and staff, whose scope covers both traded goods and trade in the service sector and intellectual property rights. Although used for multilateral agreements, multilateral agreements have led to selective exchanges and fragmentation among members in several rounds of negotiations (particularly the Tokyo Round). WTO agreements are generally a multilateral mechanism for the settlement of GATT agreements. [24] Contrary to the ITO charter, GATT did not require congressional approval. Technically, the GATT was a 1934 agreement, in accordance with the provisions of the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act. At the same time, 15 countries focused on negotiating a simple trade agreement. They agreed to remove trade restrictions on $10 billion or one-fifth of the world`s trade zone. A total of 23 countries signed the GATT agreement on 30 October 1947, paving the way for its implementation on 30 June 1948. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries whose overall objective was to promote international trade by removing or removing trade barriers, such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its objective was to “substantially reduce tariffs and other trade barriers and eliminate mutually beneficial and reciprocal preferences.” After the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993, the ECE was renamed the European Community (EC) to reflect the fact that it covered a wider range of policies. It was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, together formed the first of the three pillars of the European Union (EU) that the Treaty also established.
The EC existed in this form until it was abolished by the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, which merged the old EU pillars and provided that the EU would “replace and succeed the European Community”. The main objective of the EEC was to “preserve peace and freedom and lay the foundations for an ever closer union between the peoples of Europe,” as its preamble states. The requirement for balanced economic growth should be achieved by the fact that NAFTA is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States that creates a trilateral trade bloc in North America. In addition to facilitating applied tariff reductions, GATT`s contribution to trade liberalization includes “the commitment of extended-term tariff reductions (which became more sustainable in 1955), the definition of universality of non-discrimination through the treatment of the most favoured nation (MFN) and the status of domestic treatment, ensuring greater transparency in trade policies and creating a forum for negotiations and the peaceful settlement of bilateral disputes. All of these have helped to streamline trade policy and reduce trade barriers and political uncertainty. [4] GATT has introduced the principle of the most favoured nation into collective agreements. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a multilateral agreement regulating international trade.
