GATTWTO

GATTWTO refers to the relationship between the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), describing how multilateral trade rules evolved from the GATT framework into the WTO system. The GATT was created in 1947 to promote freer trade through tariff reductions and nondiscrimination, functioning as a provisional legal framework for trade in goods and guiding successive rounds of negotiations. The Uruguay Round of 1986–1994 culminated in the Marrakesh Agreement, which established the WTO in 1995 and incorporated the GATT rules within a formal institutional system. Today, the GATT continues to govern trade in goods as part of the WTO framework, while the WTO also administers separate agreements on trade in services (GATS) and intellectual property (TRIPS).

The WTO operates as a rules-based organization with key principles such as most-favored-nation treatment, national treatment, binding tariff commitments, and transparency in trade policies. It provides a structured process for negotiations, dispute resolution, and monitoring of member policies. The dispute settlement system under the WTO features panels and an appellate mechanism intended to ensure timely, rule-based resolution of trade disputes. In practice, the Appellate Body has been effectively non-functional since 2019 due to a lack of appointed members, though other aspects of dispute resolution continue to operate in many cases.

Membership comprises roughly 160 countries, collectively shaping multilateral trade rules and policy adjustments. GATTWTO, as a concept, emphasizes the continuity from the original GATT framework to the contemporary WTO system, highlighting how goods trade rules remain central within a broader, institutionally governed global trading order.