• The Global Transparency Resource
• Importance of Transparency
• IFI's Introduced
  • AfDB - African Development Bank
  • ADB - Asian Development Bank
  • BIS - Bank for International Settlements
  • BSTDB - Black Sea Trade and Development Bank
  • CDB - Caribbean Development Bank
  • CEB - Council of Europe Development Bank
  • EBRD - European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
  • ECB - European Central Bank
  • EIB - European Investment Bank
  • IADB - Inter-American Development Bank
  • IFC - International Finance Corporation
  • IMF - International Monetary Fund
  • IsDB - Islamic Development Bank
  • OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
  • WB - World Bank
  • WTO - World Trade Organisation

WTO World Trade Organization (Geneva, Switzerland)

The World Trade Organization exists to facilitate trade, in particular by liberalizing trade between nations. The WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade which had been doing a similar job since the end of the Second World War. Over the last few years the WTO has run into some real problems with getting agreements on new trade pacts. This is mainly because of the challenges that are involved in arranging trade between the developed and the developing world.

The main purpose of the World Trade Organization is to negotiate agreements on trade. This can prove to be a major challenge. With over one hundred and fifty members all with their own interests to protect it can be a challenge getting anything to be agreed to. The current round of negotiations on a policy that is supposed to make it easier for poorer nations to trade with the richer nations has been going on for ten years with no sign of an agreement coming anytime soon. A big part of the problem is that the developed nations and the poorer nations often have conflicting goals.

When an agreement actually does get hammered out the World Trade Organization also has responsibility for administering it. That means that they are the ones who actually publish the rules that have been agreed to and they are the ones who make sure that all of the countries are in compliance. In the event of a dispute the WTO will also play the role of mediator with a tribunal being the final step in the dispute process. In many cases the rulings of the tribunals have proven to be very controversial.

There are certain principles that the WTO sticks to when it is trying to achieve its goal of facilitating trade. The biggest of these is that trade should be non-discriminatory. All countries should be able to trade with each other on equal terms. In practice of course this rarely happens since most nations do have better relations with other nations. However the rules to require that all nations must be granted the same trading conditions as any other nation would receive. Another important principle that the WTO follows is the importance of transparency. All member nations are supposed to make sure that their trading rules are clear and that they are published for everybody to see.

Perhaps the most important principle that the WTO operates under is that trade agreements are binding and enforceable. When a country signs a trade agreement they must actually honor the agreement. If they don't there are penalties involved which can be handed out during the dispute resolution process. That being said there are also safety valves included in any agreement that allows countries out of honoring their agreements in certain conditions when it is necessary because of economic conditions to restrict trade.