The World Trade Organization essays

The World Trade Organization essays Beginning January 1st, 1995 the World Trade Organization was created from the remnants of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was established at the end of World War II. The WTO was established as a supreme-like international institution that created trade regulations and laws to oversee the global trade amongst its 146 nation members. United States was one of the first members, which was the leading force behind the creation of WTO. The intentions of this creation were to create more jobs and open frontiers for new opportunities for American businesses and citizens. With the establishment of WTO, U.S. jobs in manufacturing, agriculture, and service industries has increased by 11.7 million, and the unemployment rate declined from 6.1% to 4.5%. Although the WTO has brought success to wealthy countries such as United States and Western European countries, many argue that developing 3rd world countries are exploited and driven deeper in their economic chaos for the ben efit of the wealthy. Because of less trade restrictions, big corporations have been able to go into developing countries and use cheap labor for production as well as exploit the regional environment. The globalization of trade, which has been created by the WTO, enables countries to trade amongst each other on the same level playing field. Yet at the same time this globalization has enabled the WTO to have a monopoly over the global trade where WTO has the last word in every trade matter. United States being the forerunner for WTO must try to slow down this globalization so that some form of rules can be created that would protect the environment from exploitation and assure that economic development proceeds according to the principle of sustainable development. A general definition of sustainable development is, Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Sustai...