ABSTRACT
Most of the international economic organizations considered in this chapter were founded fifty years ago or more, during or just after World War Two. Among global organizations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were launched at Bretton Woods in 1944. The United Nations (UN) was inaugurated in 1945, with a substantial economic element. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) emerged from the Havana Conference of 1948, but was only transformed into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with limited membership, has its origin, at one remove, in the Marshall Plan which began in 1947.
