The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is the second of three rules of international trade in modern times. He was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO), and coexist with the aborted International Trade Organization (WTO). The International Trade Organization, a counterpart to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, will be negotiated with the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. Named in honor of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, site of the Mount Washington hotel where the negotiations took place, the conference was officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, are but rarely recognized under that name together more than 730 delegates from 44 Allied Nations is preparing, is already forming in the world, when the Second World War ended.
The basic idea of Bretton Woods was the promotion of open markets and lower barriers to trade between member countries. In 1946, urged the UN Economic and Social Committee for a conference in the Charter of the International Trade Organization. Although quick to agree, ITO never came into being, any attempt to authorize the U.S. Congress on the grounds that the ICO, too much power over U.S. would be given to domestic issues. End of 1950, President Truman announced he would seek to stop ratification of ITO Charter, and without U.S. participation, the organization withered on the vine. GATT was succeeded in the meantime, has been implemented but intended to supplement, not replace, the ITO. Although the OIC and the WTO, which exists today, was an organization, the GATT was a treaty, without infrastructure, personnel or institutional existence.
The GATT negotiations began in parallel and in cooperation with the ITO negotiations, and were initially treated for a short term some countries, mandatory terms simply agreed that the OIC has started operation. Twenty-three countries signed the original contract, which the U.S. Congress was an executive agreement is of the opinion, exercise the power of the president to negotiate trade agreements, if that power is granted by the Congress. Basically it was “most favored nation” status for all peoples of the signing of the contract awarded. An impressive total of 45,000 were concessions have been influenced by the first signing of the GATT, half of world trade, a major initiative, despite the failure of the ITO three years later. More “rounds” of GATT surveillance, each took on a slightly different, in different combinations of a few countries:
The cycle of Annecy in Annecy, France, in 1949, in addition to lowering of tariffs among the 13 countries. The cycle of Torquay, 1951, in England further concessions 8700th The Geneva Round, in 1956, more concessions and the participation of the first post-war Japan. The Dillon Round, 1962, Geneva named Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, and early negotiations on tariff concessions, the European Economic Community. The Kennedy Round, 1967, Geneva, named after the late President Kennedy, at which date 66 countries, are up to. The Tokyo Round, 1979, 102 countries, and the first discussion on the limitation of non-tariff trade barriers and voluntary export restraints. In 1993, the Uruguay Round, which began in 1986, the most ambitious. It took seven years to negotiate in part in 123 countries, and was the first to combine agricultural products. This was the last round of the GATT, as one of the reasons why the negotiations for lasting as long as the decision to finally have a place of organization: the WTO, which replaced the GATT in 1995.
