Question

stion 1 By using your own words, briefly explain the keys of the general agreement on sustainable trade.

Answer 1

Answer -

Keys of the general agreement on sustainable trade -

1. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), set of multilateral trade agreements aimed at the abolition of quotas and the reduction of tariff duties among the contracting nations. When GATT was concluded by 23 countries at Geneva, in 1947 (to take effect on Jan. 1, 1948), it was considered an interim arrangement pending the formation of a United Nations agency to supersede it.

2. When such an agency failed to emerge, GATT was amplified and further enlarged at several succeeding negotiations. It subsequently proved to be the most effective instrument of world trade liberalization, playing a major role in the massive expansion of world trade in the second half of the 20th century.

3. By the time GATT was replaced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, 125 nations were signatories to its agreements, which had become a code of conduct governing 90 percent of world trade.

4. General agreement on sustainable trade (GAT) most important principle was that of trade without discrimination, in which each member nation opened its markets equally to every other. As embodied in unconditional most-favoured nation clauses, this meant that once a country and its largest trading partners had agreed to reduce a tariff, that tariff cut was automatically extended to every other GAT member.

5. GAT included a long schedule of specific tariff concessions for each contracting nation, representing tariff rates that each country had agreed to extend to others. Another fundamental principle was that of protection through tariffs rather than through import quotas or other quantitative trade restrictions; GAT systematically sought to eliminate the latter.

6. Other general rules included uniform customs regulations and the obligation of each contracting nation to negotiate for tariff cuts upon the request of another. An escape clause allowed contracting countries to alter agreements if their domestic producers suffered excessive losses as a result of trade concessions.