Many people would argue that there is no doubt that the GATT/WTO has been relatively successful to an extent in creating global free trade. The figures over their existence have shown a massive movement towards the globalization of markets and thus free trade. Between the introduction of "The GATT" at the Geneva round in 1947 and the completion of Tokyo round of talks in 1979 the average tariff on imports declined 92% in America . The overall figure for average tariffs on imports in industrial countries actually fell from 40% in 1947 to just about 4% at the end of the 1990's . This was an astounding result, a result to which GATT/WTO will have played a major role.
[...] We could also argue that the improvement in free trade within nations could be the result of technological advances, in the years since 1950 we have seen the development of a world wide airline network, the internet, fax's, telephone communications, satellite and also telex's. All these advances in technology encourage free trade. These are not factors enforced by GATT, but they do have a massive effect on encouraging free trade. Countries could communicate with each other like they could never before. [...]
[...] This goes some way to show that the WTO is monitoring situations carefully, and in most cases the dispute is resolved on orders of the WTO, general, the countries involved in a dispute have adopted the WTO's recommendations”[7]. The speed at which these negotiations are completed is testament to its ability to unite countries in one morale goal. This shows that when barriers are put up the WTO more often than not has knocked them down, thus meaning that we now more than ever enjoy more freedom within international markets and that the maintenance work on ensuring it stays this way is greater than ever. [...]
[...] Thus the end of end of the war itself lead to economic recovery and thus in both World trade and World output we saw an increase. Therefore it is hard to distinguish how much of a role the GATT really played in integrating economies, we may have found that after the war protectionism would have fell anyway, as people felt safer with others. There are also factors to which GATT and the WTO may have differed in performance over the years, despite the fact that the WTO is a direct descendent of the GATT. [...]
[...] Also the fall of the levels communism in many countries including much of the Soviet Union and China would have also played a huge part in the development of free trade. Before the fall of communism in many of these countries, levels of protectionism were high, and receptivity was low. Therefore the fall of communism led to lower levels of protectionism and higher receptivity of foreign trade[10] Drawing the subject to a conclusion - I think we see that it is very hard to determine how successful the GATT/WTO have been in creating free trade. [...]
[...] In years after the formation of the WTO we see a membership list of just over 140 countries, with a list of 29 countries negotiating to become members. Most extraordinary is that of these 29 countries negotiating a place within the WTO China is amongst them. Still a country with communistic base it is ready to allow free trade to an extent within its borders, this shows that the GATT/WTO has been quite successful in promoting free trade around the globe. [...]
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