GATT was created by the Bretton Woods meetings that took place in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, setting out a plan for economic recovery after World War II, by encouraging reduction in tariffs and other international trade barriers.
One of the most significant changes made in GATT (or "GATT 1994") was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In general, each of these agreements bound the members to reduce certain tariffs, with many special-case treatments of individual products, and in many cases with exceptions and modifications for each country.
Members of GATT were pledged to work together to reduce tariffs and other barriers to international trade and to eliminate discriminatory treatment in international commerce.
The most important service of GATT was to negotiate multilateral extensions of tariff reductions through the application of the most-favored-nation clause.
The eighth, or Uruguay round, of GATT negotiations, which began in 1986 with 15 negotiating groups, was long stalemated by the issue of agricultural subsidies maintained by the European Community.
Agreements affecting international trade policy which are in force between the government or a governmental agency of any contracting party and the government or governmental agency of any other contracting party shall also be published.
This Agreement shall be open for acceptance by any contracting party which, on 1 March 1955, was a contracting party or was negotiating with a view to accession to this Agreement.
Any such territory may, by agreement with the other contracting parties which are principal suppliers of such products at the most-favoured-nation rate, substitute for such preferential rates a single preferential rate which shall not on the whole be less favourable to suppliers at the most-favoured-nation rate than the preferences in force prior to such substitution.
The agreement was designed to provide an international forum that encouraged free trade between member states by regulating and reducing tariffs on traded goods and by providing a common mechanism for resolving trade disputes.
Issues in the tuna-dolphin dispute are described by Cough (1993) in "Trade-Environment Tensions"; in the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (1992) report Trade and the Environment; and in the GATT dispute panel report (1991) on the case.
Charnovitz (1992) examines the potential of GATT to limit trade-based implementations in environmental agreements in "GATT and the Environment." In "Free International Trade and Protection of the Environment," Schoenbaum (1992) evaluates the impact of existing GATT provisions and discusses when trade restrictions may be appropriate within environmental agreements.
It was followed in 1948 by the creation of an international organization, within the United Nations, to support the agreement and to encourage free trade between nations by reducing tariffs, subsidies, quotas, and regulations that discriminate against imported products.
The legal agreement still exists although it was updated in 1994 to reflect a shift from trade in goods to trade in goods, services, and intellectual property.
The new GATT agreements are administered by the WTO.
The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures - also known as the SPS Agreement was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995.
The SPS agreement gives the WTO the power to override a country's use of the precautionary principle – a principle which allows them to act on the side of caution if there is no scientific certainty about potential threats to human health and the environment.
It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995.
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (usually abbreviated GATT) functions as the foundation of the WTO trading system, and remains in force, although the 1995 Agreement contains an updated version of it to replace the original 1947 one.
The countries who signed GATT now and then negotiated new trade agreements that all would enter into.
According to GATT practice an infringement of obligations assumed under the General Agreement was considered prima facie to constitute case of nullification or impairment within the meaning of Article XXIII.
Trade measures by nature had effects outside a contracting party's territory; for example, the Note Ad Article III reflected this point in referring to applying a contracting party's requirements at the time or point of importation (that is, before the goods enter that contracting party's customs territory).
This was contrary to the fundamental premises of the GATT.
The Commission had reached the conclusion that the withdrawal of the tariff concession, so that the Government would be free to raise the protective duties, was necessary to prevent continuance of the injury.
Agreement was reached with each of these governments except with the Government of Czechoslovakia.
The Working Party took note of this document only insofar as it indicated the methods followed by the Tariff Commission in their investigation, and did not consider it to be part of its task to comment on the views expressed therein which have a bearing on the interpretation of Article XIX.
The Agreement was originally part of a draft charter for an International Trade Organization, the third leg of the Bretton-Woods post-war order, along with the IMF and the World Bank.
While the GATT itself, a large list of negotiated trade concessions and rules of conduct, entered into force in January 1948 (as GATT 1947), the rest of the Havana Charter was never ratified, primarily because of opposition in the U.S. Congress.
Another opportunity for promoting sustainable development via the GATT is in the area of agriculture, where reduced subsidies (currently provided mostly by the U.S. and the E.U.) for agricultural products would allow for increased production in the developing countries, and possibly reduce overall use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
The tariff reductions agreed upon by each Member shall be implemented in five equal rate reductions, except as may be otherwise specified in a Member's Schedule.
The implementation of the concessions and commitments contained in the schedules annexed to this Protocol shall, upon request, be subject to multilateral examination by the Members.
(b) For the purpose of the reference in paragraph 6(a) of Article II of GATT 1994 to the date of that Agreement, the applicable date in respect of a schedule of concessions annexed to this Protocol shall be the date of this Protocol.
The GATT is one third of the Bretton Woods system that was created after World War II to ensure a stable trade and economic world environment.
GATT 1947 and GATT 1994 are two distinct agreements.
GATT 1994 incorporates the GATT 1947 provisions (except for the Protocol on Provisional Application).
Accordingly, a contracting party otherwise complying with the provisions of this Article shall not be required to withdraw or modify restrictions on the ground that a change in those policies would render unnecessary restrictions which it is applying under this Article.
The provisions of this Agreement shall apply to the metropolitan customs territories of the contracting parties and to any other customs territories in respect of which this Agreement has been accepted under Article XXVI or is being applied under Article XXXIII or pursuant to the Protocol of Provisional Application.
Pending such agreement the provisions of Part II of this Agreement shall, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 2 of this Article, continue to apply as between such contracting party and other contracting parties.
In the case of the contracting parties named in Annex G, the date of April 10, 1947, referred to in subparagraph (a) and (b) of this paragraph shall be replaced by the respective dates set forth in that Annex.
Each government accepting this Agreement shall deposit an instrument of acceptance with the Executive Secretary5 to the Contracting Parties, who will inform all interested governments of the date of deposit of each instrument of acceptance and of the day on which this Agreement enters into force under paragraph 6 of this Article.
The annexes to this Agreement are hereby made an integral part of this Agreement.
(c) any interim agreement referred to in sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) shall include a plan and schedule for the formation of such a customs union or of such a free-trade area within a reasonable length of time.
The imposition of an equivalent margin of tariff preference to replace a margin of preference in an internal tax existing on April 10, 1947, exclusively between two or more of the territories listed in this Annex shall not be deemed to constitute an increase in a margin of tariff preference.
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) covers international trade in goods.
The workings of the GATT agreement are the responsibility of the Council for Trade in Goods (Goods Council) which is made up of representatives from all WTO member countries.
The Goods Council is responsible for the operation of the GATT Agreement and for the work of the committees, working groups and working parties on sectors of activity covered by the Agreement.
The national tariff schedules included in this database represent submissions to the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations.
Trade, foreign, finance and agriculture Ministers from more than 120 World Trade Organization member governments and from those in the process of acceding to the WTO participated in a Ministerial Conference in Singapore, Dec. 9-13, 1996.
The conference was the first since the WTO entered into force on Jan. 1, 1995, and examined issues related to the work of the WTO's first two years of activity and the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements.
The National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade is a non-profit 501(c)(3) Research and Educational Corporation.
This data access service is provided by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), which operates the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The Final Act of the 1986 - 1994 Uruguay Round of trade negotiations is available from the World Trade Organization in English, French, and Spanish.
The full text of the "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, 1947 (as amended through 1966)" is available via the Multilaterals Project, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
Testimony of Sir James Goldsmith before the Senate Commerce Committee on the subject of the Uruguay Round of GATT.
An agreement signed in 1947, whose purpose was to promote global trade between members through a reduction in tariffs.
The formation of GATT--and its subsequent amendments up to 1994--laid the framework for the creation of the WTO in 1995.
- The WTO sets the global rules of trade.
Further Reading: GATT defined in the Encyclopedia of Marxism.