From GATT to WTO to what.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: International Organisations, grade: 1,7, University of Potsdam, language: English, abstract: Die Ursprunge und aktuelle Problemstellungen des multilateralen Handelssystems.The multilateral trade Regime, the World Trade Organization, arrived, asso often in its past, at a cross road. The Doha Development Agenda is now in its7th year, once again cancelled and once again tried to be revitalized. How come?On the one hand a broad consensus exists, saying that free trade is better foreveryone. From farmers and fishermen to bankers and C.E.O.& 39;s, everybody fromwhite to blue-collar is supposed to gain welfare from global free trade. And thosewho don& 39;t even have collars can get some through trading. China& 39;s rise in the lastdecades is not imaginable without global trade. Almost 1 billion people profitfrom that and that is just one country!But on the other hand there are protectionist measures, bilateraloverreaching treaties, subsidies for bankrupt industries and non-tariff barriers totrade installed from those countries that benefitted the most of the liberalizationsof the past decades.Today the small ones, the former colonies, the developing countries try topick their piece of the pie and are not willing to let the industrialized countriesbreak the rules they used to engage years ago. They are not willing to take theinequality anymore and raise their voices in one of the only forums th...