Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
8 - The World Trade Organization Model
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
Summary
For over 7.5 billion people in the world, “the World Trade Organization (WTO) model”, if it means anything at all, signifies the set of rules overseen by the WTO that have largely governed world trade since the Second World War. To 60 million people in the United Kingdom, on the other hand, it means what happens if their government fails to reach a trade agreement with the European Union by the end of the transitional period foreseen in the Withdrawal Agreement, and their mutual trade is governed by WTO rules alone. Such an outcome is also often known as “no deal” and this chapter is mostly about the implications and consequences of that outcome. I start, however, by outlining what WTO rules in general mean.
THE WTO
The WTO came into operation on 1 January 1995, following the conclusion of the 1986–94 Uruguay Round of trade talks held under the auspices of the the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is an international organization with 164 members and codifies the rules for international trade in goods (the GATT), services (the General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS) and intellectual property (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS), and supports a dispute settlement procedure and a monitoring function. In addition, it has a number of side agreements such as the Trade Facilitation Agreement and the Government Procurement Agreement.
The GATT, the WTO's intellectual and operational forerunner, arose in 1947 as a means to achieve trade liberalization following the Second World War. Recognizing that the protectionism and competitive devaluations of the 1920s and 1930s had exacerbated the slump and that trade tensions had contributed to the war itself, the USA led 21 other countries to a more liberal but rules-based system than had pertained previously. There had initially been hopes for an International Trade Organization (ITO) which would have had extensive and far-reaching powers to manage world commerce, but the Americans eventually felt this a bridge too far and let plans for the ITO fail. The GATT was a temporary agreement (a treaty, not an international organization, as were the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) designed just to let desired levels of trade liberalization proceed with sufficient international oversight to make them credible.
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- Outside the EUOptions for Britain, pp. 97 - 110Publisher: Agenda PublishingPrint publication year: 2020