World Trade Organization

For other uses of the initials WTO, see WTO (disambiguation).

WTO Logo

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multinational rules-based and member driven organization which oversees a large number of agreements defining the "rules of trade" between its member states (WTO, 2004a). The WTO is the heir to the never-created International Trade Organization that was originally charged with a mission encompassing not only trade issues but also issues of environment and development. The WTO, as opposed to the ITO, focuses only on trade issues and largely overlooks other concerns in closed proceedings. However since the Doha Development Agenda was agreed in November 2001 there has been a partial attempt to incorporate development issues in its discussions.

WTO headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland. On May 13, 2005, Pascal Lamy was elected the Director-General. He took over from Supachai Panitchpakdi on September 1, 2005. As of December 15, 2005, there are 150 members in the organization, with the Kingdom of Tonga becoming the 150th member. Most of the countries are developing countries. All WTO members are required to grant one another most favoured nation status, such that (with some exceptions) trade concessions granted by a WTO member to another country must be granted to all WTO members (WTO, 2004c).

In the late 1990s, the WTO became a major target of protests by the anti-globalization movement. See critique.

Origin

The WTO was established on January 1, 1995 to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a series of post-war trade treaties intended to facilitate free trade. The GATT principles and agreements were adopted by the WTO, which was charged with administering and extending them. Unlike the GATT, the WTO has a substantial institutional structure.

The WTO is effectively the long-delayed successor to the expected International Trade Organization, which was originally intended to follow the GATT. The International Trade Organization charter was agreed at the UN Conference on Trade and Employment in Havana in March 1948, but was blocked by the U.S. Senate (WTO, 2004b). Some historians have argued that the failure may have resulted from fears within the American business community that the International Trade Organization could be used to regulate, rather than liberate, big business (Lisa Wilkins, 1997).

Structure

All WTO members may participate in all councils, committees, etc., except Appellate Body, Dispute Settlement panels, and plurilateral committees.

Highest level: Ministerial Conference

The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which has to meet at least every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions. The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements.

Second level: General Council

The daily work of the ministerial conference is handled by three groups The General Council, The Dispute Settlement Body and The Trade Policy Review Body.

1. The General Council- is the WTO’s highest-level decision-making body in Geneva, meeting regularly to carry out the functions of the WTO. It has representatives (usually ambassadors or equivalent) from all member governments and has the authority to act on behalf of the ministerial conference which only meets about every two years. The council acts on behalf on the Ministerial Council on all of the WTO affairs. The current chairman is Amina Chawahir Mohamed (Kenya).

2. The Dispute Settlement Body - Made up of all member governments, usually represented by ambassadors or equivalent. The current chairperson is Eirik Glenne (Norway).

3. The Trade Policy Review Body (TPRB) - the WTO General Council meets as the Trade Policy Review Body to undertake trade policy reviews of Members under the TRPM. The TPRB is thus open to all WTO Members. The current chairperson is Don Stephenson (Canada).

Third level: Councils for Trade

The Councils for Trade work under the General Council. There are three councils - Council for Trade in Goods, Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and Council for Trade in Services - each council works in different fields. Apart from these three councils, six other bodies report to the General Council reporting on issues such as trade and development, the environment, regional trading arrangements and administrative issues.

1. Council for Trade in Goods- The workings of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which covers international trade in goods, are the responsibility of the Council for Trade in Goods. It is made up of representatives from all WTO member countries. The current chairperson is Vesa Tapani Himanen (Finland).

2. Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights- Information on intellectual property in the WTO, news and official records of the activities of the TRIPS Council, and details of the WTO’s work with other international organizations in the field.

3. Council for Trade in Services- The Council for Trade in Services operates under the guidance of the General Council and is responsible for overseeing the functioning of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). It’s open to all WTO members, and can create subsidiary bodies as required. The current chairperson is Claudia Uribe (Colombia).

Fourth level: Subsidiary Bodies

Under each of the three councils, there are subsidiary bodies under each one.

1. The Goods Council- subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Goods. It has 11 committees dealing with specific subjects (such as agriculture, market access, subsidies, anti-dumping measures and so on), which include the following. Again, these committees consist of all member countries.

• Information Technology Agreement (ITA) Committee

• State Trading Enterprises

• Textiles Monitoring Body- which has a chairman and 10 members acting under it.

• Groups dealing with notifications- which has the governments inform the WTO about new policies and measures in their countries.

2. The Services Council- subsidiary under the Council for Trade in Services which deals with financial services, domestic regulations and other specific commitments.

3. Dispute Settlement panels and Appellate Body- subsidiary under the Dispute Settlement Body to resolve disputes and the Appellate Body to deal with appeals.

Other committees

• Committees on
  • Trade and Environment
  • Trade and Development (Subcommittee on Least-Developed Countries)
  • Regional Trade Agreements
  • Balance of Payments Restrictions
  • Budget, Finance and Administration

• Working parties on
  • Accession

• Working groups on
  • Trade, debt and finance
  • Trade and technology transfer

Mission

The WTO aims to encourage smooth and free trade by promoting lower trade barriers and providing a platform for the negotiation of trade and to resolve disputes between member nations, when they arise. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.

Principles of the trading system

The WTO discussions should follow these fundamental principles of trading.

1. A trading system should be discrimination-free in a sense that a country cannot favour another country or discriminate against foreign products or services.
2. A trading system should be freer where there should be little trade barriers(tariffs and non-tariff barriers).
3. A trading system should be predictable where foreign companies and governments can be sure that trade barriers would not be raised and markets will remain open.
4. A trading system should be more competitive.
5. A trading system should be more accommodating for less developed countries, giving them more time to adjust, greater flexibility, and more privileges.

Functions

The WTO has two basic functions: as a negotiating forum for discussions of new and existing trade rules, and as a trade dispute settlement body.

Negotiations

While most international organisations operate on a one country, one vote or even a weighted voting basis, many WTO decisions, such as adopting agreements (and revisions to them) are determined by consensus. This does not necessarily mean that unanimity is found: only that no Member finds a decision so unacceptable that they must insist on their objection. Voting is only employed as a fall-back mechanism or in special cases.

The advantage of consensus is that it encourages efforts to find the most widely acceptable decision. Main disadvantages include large time requirements and many rounds of negotiation to develop a consensus decision, and the tendency for final agreements to use ambiguous language on contentious points that makes future interpretation of treaties difficult. Richard Steinberg (2002) argues that although the WTO's consensus governance model provides law-based initial bargaining, trading rounds close through power-based bargaining favouring Europe and the United States, and may not lead to Pareto improvement. The most notable recent failures of consensus, at the Ministerial meetings at Seattle (1999) and Cancún (2003), were due to the refusal of some developing countries to accept proposals.

The WTO began the current round of negotiations, the Doha round, at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001 (WTO, 2004d). The talks have been highly contentious and agreement has not been reached, despite continuing talks in Cancún, Geneva, and Paris. The Sixth Ministerial Conference was held in Hong Kong on December 13 - December 18, 2005.

Dispute resolution

Like most other international organizations, the WTO has no significant power to enforce the decisions it makes when a member brings a complaint against another. If decisions of its Dispute Settlement Body are not complied with, it may authorise "retaliatory measures" on the part of the complaining member, but no other enforcement action is available. This means that economically powerful states like the United States can essentially ignore rulings against them from complaints brought by the economically weak, as the latter states simply do not have the power to hurt US trade enough to force the US to change its position. This has been the case, for example, with the March 2005 Appellate Body ruling in case DS 267 declaring US cotton subsidies illegal.

Membership

A world map of WTO participation. Green indicates members, yellow/orange indicates observers or prospective members, and grey indicates countries with no official WTO relations. The countries of the European Communities (i.e., the EU) are dually represented collectively and individually.

The WTO has 150 members (76 members at its foundation and a further 74 members joined over the following ten years). The the 25 states of the European Union are represented also as the European Communities. Some non-sovereign autonomous entities of member states are included as separate members.

The latest (as of 15 December 2005) member admitted being the Kingdom of Tonga on 15 December 2005 during the ministerial conference. A current list of members can be found here.

A number of non-members have been observers (31) at the WTO and are currently negotiating their membership: Algeria, Andorra, Azerbaijan, Bahamas (process freezed in 2001), Belarus, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea (expected to start membership negotiations in 2007 or earlier), Ethiopia, Holy See (Vatican; special exception from the rules allows it to remain observer without starting negotiations), Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lebanese Republic, Libya, Russian Federation, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia and Montenegro (each republic is applying for separate membership), Seychelles (negotiations freezed since 1998), Sudan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu (accession agreed in 2001, but not ratified by Vanuatu itself), Vietnam and Yemen.

Iran first applied to join the WTO in 1996, but the United States, accusing Tehran of supporting international terrorism, blocked its application 22 times. The U.S. said in March it would drop its veto on a start to Iran's accession negotiations. The U.S. has chosen not to block Iran's latest application for membership as part of a nuclear related deal.

Syria first applied to join the WTO in October 2001, then again in January 2004 and September 2005. Its application for membership is currently still pending, waiting for WTO General Council approval to start negotiations.

Russia, having first applied to join GATT in 1993, is not yet a member either.

The shortest accession negotiation was that of the Kyrgyz Republic, lasting 2 years and 10 months. The longest was that of China, lasting 15 years and 5 months.

The following states (15) and territories (2) so far have no official interaction with the WTO: the states of Eritrea, Somalia, Liberia, Turkmenistan, North Korea, Monaco, San Marino, East Timor, Comoros, Nauru, Tuvalu, Palau, Kiribati, Micronesia, Marshall Islands and the territories of Western Sahara, Palestine.

Agreements

The WTO includes more than 20 agreements which have the status of international legal texts. Member countries must sign and ratify all agreements. A list of WTO agreements can be found here A discussion of some of the most important agreements follows.

Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)

The AoA came into effect with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. Its effect has been to reduce tariff protections for small farmers – a key source of income for developing countries – while allowing rich countries to pay their farmers massive subsidies which developing countries could never afford. The AoA has three central concepts, or "pillars": domestic support, market access and export subsidies.

Domestic Support

The AoA structures domestic support (subsidies) into three categories or "boxes": a Green Box, an Amber Box and a Blue Box. The Green Box contains fixed payments to producers for environmental programs, so long as the payments are "decoupled" from current production levels. The Amber Box contains domestic subsidies that governments have agreed to reduce but not eliminate. The Blue Box contains subsidies which can be increased without limit, so long as payments are linked to production-limiting programs. [1]

The AoA's domestic support system currently allows Europe and the US to spend $380 billion every year on agricultural subsidies alone. "It is often still argued that subsidies are needed to protect small farmers but, according to the World Bank, more than half of EU support goes to 1% of producers while in the US 70% of subsidies go to 10% of producers, mainly agri-businesses." [2]. The effect of these subsidies is to flood global markets with below-cost commodities, depressing prices and undercutting producers in poor countries – a practice known as “dumping”.

General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)

(See General Agreement on Trade in Services)

Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement

(See Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights)

Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Agreement

The WTO’s agreement on “sanitary and phytosanitary standards” (SPS) came into effect in 1995, and aims to restrict the use of quarantine measures to allow a “free” flow of international trade. Under the SPS agreement the WTO sets constraints on government policies relating to food safety (bacterial contaminants, pesticides, inspection and labelling) as well as animal and plant health (imported pests and diseases). Quarantine policies plays a vitally important role in ensuring the protection of human, animal and plant health. But in the eyes of the WTO's SPS agreement, quarantine barriers can be a ‘technical trade barrier’ used to keep out foreign competitors.

The SPS agreement gives the WTO the power to override a country's use of the "precautionary principle" – a principle which allows them to act on the side of caution if there is no scientific certainty about potential threats to human health and the environment. Under SPS rules, the burden of proof is on countries to demonstrate scientifically that something is dangerous before it can be regulated, even though scientists agree that it is impossible to predict all forms of damage posed by insects or pest plants.

SPS & Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs)

The US – which grows as much as 80% of the world’s GM crops – has used the SPS agreement to challenge the EU’s laws restricting the import of Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs), arguing they are “unjustifiable” and illegal under WTO rules. The WTO is due to decide the case in 2006. If it decides that the EU laws are illegal, the decision will also put in jeopardy the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol – the first legally binding global agreement giving countries the right to reject GM organisms on the basis of the precautionary principle.

Chronology

• 1986-1994 - Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations culminating in the Marrakech Agreement that established the WTO.
• January 1, 1995 - The WTO came into existence.
• May 1, 1995 - Renato Ruggiero became director-general for a 4-year term.
• December 9 - December 13, 1996 - The inaugural ministerial conference in Singapore. Disagreements between largely developed and developing economies emerged during this conference over four issues initiated by this conference, which led to them being collectively referred to as the "Singapore issues".
• May 18 - May 20, 1998 - 2nd ministerial conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
• September 1, 1999 - Mike Moore became director-general. The post had been fiercely contested; eventually a compromise was reached with Mike Moore and Supachai Panitchpakdi taking half each of a six-year term.
• November 30 - December 3, 1999 - 3rd ministerial conference in Seattle, Washington, USA. The conference itself ended in failure, with massive demonstrations and riots drawing worldwide attention.
• November 9 - November 13, 2001 - 4th ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar begins the Doha round. Issuance of the Doha Declaration.
• December 11, 2001 - The People's Republic of China joined the WTO after 15 years of negotiations (the longest in GATT history).
• January 1, 2002 - The Republic of China (Taiwan) joined under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu."
• September 1, 2002 - Supachai Panitchpakdi became director-general.
• September 10 - September 14, 2003 - 5th ministerial conference in Cancún, Mexico aims at forging agreement on the Doha round. An alliance of 22 southern states, the G20 (led by India, China and Brazil), resisted demands from the North for agreements on the so-called "Singapore issues" and called for an end to agricultural subsidies within the EU and the US. The talks broke down without progress.
• August 2004 - Geneva talks achieve a framework agreement on the Doha round. Developed countries will lower agricultural subsidies, and in exchange the developing countries will lower tariff barriers to manufactured goods.
• May 2005 - Paris talks aimed at finalising issues for agreement before the December 2005 ministerial conference in Hong Kong are hung over technical issues. The group of five (U.S., Australia, the EU, Brazil and India) fail to agree over chicken, beef and rice. France continues to protest restrictions on subsidies to farmers. Oxfam accuses the EU of delaying tactics which threaten to scupper the Doha round.
• November 11 - WTO General Council successfully adopts Saudi Arabia’s terms of Accession
• December 13 - December 18, 2005 - 6th ministerial conference is being held in Hong Kong.

Critique

The stated aim of the WTO is to promote free trade, stimulate economic growth and hence make people's lives more prosperous.

The WTO also promotes economic globalization, which anti-globalization activists consider problematic. WTO treaties have been accused of a partial and unfair bias toward multinational corporations and wealthy nations.

The WTO is criticized as being the tool of powerful lobbies.

Small countries in the WTO wield little influence. Despite the WTO aim of helping the developing countries, the influential states in the WTO focus on their own commercial interests. The needs of the developing countries are often perceived to be ignored. In addition, the issues of health, safety and environment are steadfastly ignored.

Jagdish Bhagwati, although pro-free trade and pro-globalization, has strongly criticised the introduction of TRIPs (forum shifting) into the WTO/GATT framework. His fear is that other non-trade agendas might overwhelm the organization's function.

Many nongovernmental organizations, such as the World Federalist Movement, are calling for the creation of a WTO parliamentary assembly to allow for more democratic participation in WTO decisionmaking [3]. Dr. Caroline Lucas recommended that such an assembly "have a more prominent role to play in the form of parliamentary scrutiny, and also in the wider efforts to reform the WTO processes, and its rules" [4]. However, Dr. Raoul Marc Jennar argues that a consultative parliamentary assembly would be ineffective for the following reasons [5]:

• It does not resolve the problem of “informal meetings” whereby industrialised countries negotiate the most important decisions;
• It does not reduce the de facto inequality which exists between countries with regards to an effective and efficient participation to all activities within all WTO bodies;
• It does not rectify the multiple violations of the general principles of law which affect the dispute settlement mechanism.

The WTO in fiction

The computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War features a fictional WTO with seemingly more of a military function, providing technology and military support to cities caught in the "Collapse".

Ministerial conferences

1st Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 1996

The inaugural ministerial conference was held in Singapore in 1996. Disagreements between largely developed and developing economies emerged during this conference over four issues initiated by this conference, which led to them being collectively referred to as the "Singapore issues".

2nd Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 1998

3rd Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999

The third conference ended in failure, with massive demonstrations and riots drawing worldwide attention.

4th Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 2001

5th Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 2003

The ministerial conference was held in Cancún, Mexico, aiming at forging agreement on the Doha round. An alliance of 22 southern states, the G20 (led by India, China and Brazil), resisted demands from the North for agreements on the so-called "Singapore issues" and called for an end to agricultural subsidies within the EU and the US. The talks broke down without progress.

6th Ministerial Conference

Main article: WTO Ministerial Conference of 2005

The sixth WTO Conference Ministerial was held in Hong Kong from December 13 - December 18, 2005. It was considered vital if the four-year-old Doha Development Agenda negotiations were to move forward sufficiently to conclude the round in 2006. In this meeting, countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013, and terminate any cotton export subsidies by the end of 2006. Further concessions to developing countries included an agreement to introduce duty free, tariff free access for goods from the Least Developed Countries, following the Everything But Arms initiative of the European Union - but with up 3% of tariff lines exempted. Other major issues were left for further negotiation to be completed by the end of2006.

The conference was notable for continual verbal sparring between the EU Trade Representative Peter Mandelson and the US Trade Representative Rob Portman over the issue of farm subsidies, and the key role played by the G20 group of middle income developing countries led by Brazil and India. They announced an alliance with other developing countries and worked closely with them on some issues. Nevertheless the talks were crticised by many development groups for not putting fair trade at the centre of the agenda. Even the UK trade minister Alan Johnson characterised the meeting as "one step up from failure."

The protests at this conference turned out to be the closest to the venue of a conference in WTO history; the police were forced to use tear gas to prevent the protesters forcing their way into the venue, the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. An estimated 10,000 protesters were present in Hong Kong during the meeting, and the areas around the convention center where the meetings took place were barricaded from 6pm on December 12, 2005.

Very prominent amongst the protesters were South Korean farmers who have a history of militant and desperate actions, with one having committed suicide at the last conference to bring international attention to their plight.

The protesters' main agenda was to stop the WTO talks by staging roadblocks to prevent delegates from getting to the conference. The government had already started to glue down bricks used to pave the pavement, so as to prevent the use of bricks as weapons. Businesses around the Wan Chai area, where the conferences were taking place had been informed to tighten up their security, such as metal gates and boarded-up windows.

See also

• Director-General of the World Trade Organization
• Free trade
  • Antidumping
  • Safeguard
  • Subsidy
• GATS Agreement
• International trade
• TRIPS Agreement
• Trade bloc
• Anti-Globalization
  • Battle of Seattle
  • The Yes Men

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

World Trade Organization

• Official WTO homepage
  • Agreements administered by the WTO
  • WTO 10th Anniversary — Highlights of the first decade, Annual Report 2005 pages 116-166
  • 6th Ministerial Conference - WTO information
  • 6th Ministerial Conference - Hong Kong host government information
• BBC News — Profile: WTO
• CNN - Special: WTO Hong Kong ongoing coverage
• Guardian Unlimited - Special Report: The World Trade Organisation ongoing coverage
• Panos London - Trading Places: African and Asian journalists report from the WTO Hong Kong
• EUROPA - The EU and the WTO
• USInfo - USA and the WTO
• European Trade Union Institute - WTO and Asbestos
• International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
• www.3dthree.org — Jargon Explained, Glossaries of Trade terms compiled by 3D (Trade, Human Rights, Equitable Economy)
• Slate — Enemies of the WTO: Bogus Arguments against the World Trade Organization by Paul Krugman
• Guardian Unlimited - Time for Tranformation — by George Monbiot, September 8, 2003
• Sailing Close to the Wind: Navigating the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Dec 2005.
• The World Trade Organisation: An Australian Guide, Global Trade Watch, Dec 2005.

Anti-WTO links

• Target:WTO
• Parody of official WTO page
• WTOaction.org
• TradeObservatory.org
• www.globalexchange.org — Top Reasons to Oppose the WTO
• Independent Media Center
• www.sfgate.com — Is the World Trade Organization a blessing or a curse? by Kevin Phillips
• www.foodfirst.org — International Day of Protest Against the WTO
• Just Say No to the WTO — graphic art by Seattle's James Koehnline
• Oxfam: Make trade fair
• GegenStandpunkt - The Nations’ Struggle for the Wealth of the World and its Latest Battlefields
• The news showing people fight against World-trade despite arrest
• WTO infringes human rights
• Globalization Monitor
• Monthly Review - WTO stops world taking over?!
• The Tyranny of Free Trade Friends of the Earth International, Dec 2005.
• Down with the WTO and its manipulation by the big powers to force the masses of the developing countries into poverty and ruin! - Seattle Anti-Imperialist Committee leaflet

References and further readings

• Martin Khor et al (2005), WTO and the Global Trading System: Development Impacts and Reform Proposals, Zed Books
• Fatoumata Jawara and Aileen Kwa (2004), Behind the Scenes at the WTO: The Real World of International Trade Negotiations/Lessons of Cancun, Zed Books
• Braithwaite, John & Peter Drahos (2000), Global Business Regulation, Cambridge University Press.
• Dunkley, Graham (2000)The Free Trade Adventure, Zed Books.
• Steinberg, Richard H. (2002). In the shadow of law or power? Consensus-based bargaining and outcomes in the GATT/WTO. International Organization 56 (2), 339–374.
• World Trade Organization. (2004b). Understanding the WTO - The GATT years: From Havana to Marrakesh. Retrieved 11 December 2004
• World Trade Organization. (2004c). Understanding the WTO - Principles of the trading system. Retrieved 11 December 2004.
• World Trade Organization. (2004d). Understanding the WTO - The Doha agenda. Retrieved 11 December 2004.
• World Trade Organization. (2004e). Understanding the WTO - members. Retrieved 12 December 2004.
• Wilkins, Mira (1997, 20 November) Review of Susan Ariel Aaronson, "Trade and the American Dream: A Social History of Postwar Trade Policy" Economic History Services.
• Chen Lanyan (Institute of International Studies, China), Gendered impact of China's entry into WTO: A conceptual scheme to understand vulnerability, conference paper.

Gendered impact of China's entry into WTO: A conceptual scheme to understand vulnerability

• Gigi Franciso (IGTN,Philippines), MODE 4:What we need to know, conference paper. MODE 4:What we need to know

More references at the WorldTradeLawnet Bibliography.

• Maria Riley (IGTN, North America, US) Gender, economics, and advocacy: Issues in Agreement on Agriculture, conference paper. Gender, economics, and advocacy: Issues in Agreement on Agriculture
• Rokeya Kabir (Director, Bangladesh Nari Proghati Sangha Dahka, Bangladesh), conference paper Experiences and concerns on trade liberalisation and women in Bangladish
• The WTO and beyond: building on Hong Kong's strengths, Hong Kong : Public Affairs Section, 2005
• Klein, Naomi (1999) No space, no choice, no jobs, no logo : taking aim at the brand bullies New York : Picador USA
• Callinicos, Alex (2003) An anti-capitalist manifesto Cambridge : Polity Press ; Malden, MA : Distributed in the USA by Blackwell Publishers
• Tonga joined WTO as the 150th member. [6]

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