ABSTRACT
Seven years of hard negotiations went into the drafting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its related agreements. The completion of that process seems an extraordinary achievement, especially since it occurred in an international environment that appeared tilted toward increased protectionism. The WTO is charged with implementing an extensive group of existing agreements that bear on international trade in goods, with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade occupying center position in the group. One cannot undertake a comparison of the International Trade Organisation (ITO) with the WTO without taking cognizance of some of the significant differences in the settings surrounding the negotiation of the two agreements. Critical differences between the ITO and the WTO appear not only, in the areas of competence assigned to each of them, but also in the processes prescribed for their respective operations.
