Everything about Uruguay Round totally explained
The
World Trade Organization conducts negotiations through what are called
rounds. The
Uruguay Round commenced in September
1986 and continued until April
1994. The Round, based on the
GATT ministerial meeting in Geneva (1982), was launched in
Punta del Este in
Uruguay (hence the name), followed by negotiations in
Montreal,
Geneva,
Brussels,
Washington, D.C., and
Tokyo, with the 20 agreements finally being signed in
Marrakech - the
Marrakesh Agreement. The Round transformed the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the
World Trade Organization (WTO).
See the
Doha Round for the following round.
Goals
The main objectives of the Uruguay Round were:
They also wanted to draft a code to deal with
copyright violation and other forms of
intellectual property rights.
Background
The 1982 Ministerial Declaration identified problems including structural deficiencies, spill-over impacts of certain countries' policies on world trade GATT couldn't manage. To address these issues, the eighth GATT round (known as the Uruguay Round) was launched in September 1986, in
Punta del Este,
Uruguay. It was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed: the talks were going to extend the trading system into several new areas, notably trade in services and intellectual property, and to reform trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles; all the original GATT articles were up for review.
The round was supposed to end in December 1990, but the US and
EU disagreed on how to reform agricultural trade and decided to extend the talks. Finally, In November 1992, the US and EU settled most of their differences in a deal known informally as "the Blair House accord", and on
April 15 1994, the deal was signed by ministers from most of the 123 participating governments at a meeting in
Marrakesh,
Morocco. The agreement established the
World Trade Organization, which came into being upon its entry into force on
January 1,
1995, to replace the GATT system.
Achievements
The GATT still exists as the WTO's umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations (a distinction is made between GATT 1994, the updated parts of GATT, and GATT 1947, the original agreement which is still the heart of GATT 1994). The GATT 1994 isn't however the only legally binding agreement included in the Final Act; a long list of about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and understandings was adopted. In fact, the agreements fall into a simple structure with six main parts:
an umbrella agreement (the Agreement Establishing the WTO);
agreements for each of the three broad areas of trade that the WTO covers: goods and investment (the Multilateral Agreements on Trade in Goods including the GATT 1994 and the TRIMS), services (GATS), and intellectual property (TRIPS);
dispute settlement (DSU); and
reviews of governments' trade policies (TPRM).
Criticism
Groups such as Oxfam have criticized the Uruguay Round for paying insufficient attention to the special needs of developing countries. One aspect of this criticism is that figures very close to rich country industries — such as former Cargill executive Dan Amstutz — had a major role in the drafting of Uruguay Round language on agriculture and other matters. As with the WTO in general, NGOs such as Health Gap and Global Trade Watch also criticize what was negotiated in the Round on intellectual property and industrial tariffs as setting up too many constraints on policy-making and human needs.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Uruguay Round'.
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