ABSTRACT
As explained above, the GATT lacked an institutional structure – in
the early years of its operation it did not even exist as an entity except
when formal meetings of the contracting parties were held. It is pre-
cisely this gap that the WTO came to fill. However, the WTO did not
start from a clean slate. A lot of the institutional design that the
GATT put into place through, essentially, ‘‘learning by doing,’’ pro-
vided inspiration to the architects of the current world trade regime.
