ABSTRACT
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has been the institutional embodiment of efforts since World War II to establish a nondiscriminatory, multilateral liberal trade order. Eight rounds of multilateral trade negotiations have been conducted within the GATT since its creation in 1947. The GATT is an international organization that provides a set of rules for international trade, sponsors multilateral trade liberalization, and helps resolve trade disputes. The fundamental principle of the GATT is nondiscrimination as embodied in most favored nation treatment, in which a trade concession granted by member A to member B is automatically extended to all GATT members. Between its founding in 1947 and the early 1980s, the GATT had met seven times in special multilateral trade negotiation rounds. The first six rounds were primarily concerned with tariffs, which were progressively reduced from an average of 25 percent to 40 percent in the immediate post-World War II period to an average of 10 percent by 1970.
