World Trade Organization
Arguments for the WTO
For a nation that wishes to become a member of WTO, it has to submit an application to be reviewed critically by any nations committee that wishes to be part of it. The nation then negotiates agreements of bilateral trade with any nation it desires to trade with. The agreed terms of such bilateral agreements automatically become applicable to all the other members of WTO. The agreements are then handed over to the review committee of WTO which then drafts the membership terms which in most cases include all alterations to its policies of trade that the applying nation have to ensure that they are in place. Finally, if more than two thirds of all the members of WTO vote in favor of the applying nation, it is accepted as a new member (Nichols, 1997).
WTOs highest decision making organ is its Ministerial Meeting, which only meet after every two years. The next body that is involved in making decisions is the organizations General Council, which takes the decisions discussed by the highest body involved in making decisions. The main process that is usually applied is the simple majority of the present members and each member is required to vote. But it is quite rare for any formal to take place when decisions are being made and in most cases they are accepted through consensus (Smythe Smith, 2006).
WTOs stated objective is promoting free trade across the world as well as stimulating economic growth among its member nations. This is one area where WTO faces a lot of criticism, there are individuals and organizations who argue that pursuing free trade basically leads to increased divergence as opposed to income levels convergence within poor and rich nations that is, the rich nations become richer while the poor ones sink further in poverty. This is due to the fact that WTO is unable to manage the economy of the world impartially, because its operations are mostly viewed to have a systematic that is biased towards multinational corporations and the rich nations and thus harms the much poorer nations whose power of negotiating is much weaker (Gerhart, 2004).
Free trade as proposed by WTO does not benefit the developing nations while the rich countries has greatly benefited from the same. This is mainly because the free trade policies have not in any way assisted the developing nations to access the international markets. They are yet to benefit from the textile quotas, export subsidies and domestic support and non tariff barriers like the measures of anti-dumping which have only increased. The critics of free trade as proposed under the WTO feel that they are more oriented towards benefiting only the rich and developed nations whose power of negotiating is much higher as compared to that of the poor nations and thus can easily manipulate various agreements by using undue advantage. There is therefore no free trade for the developing and poor nations under the policies of the WTO (Kos et al, 2002).
In order to deal with the current financial crisis, the WTO has come up with the Doha deal which is aimed at preventing the form of commerce barriers of that contributed significantly in the 1930s great depression. The round draft negotiation of Doha shows some form of protectionism for the multinationals and the rich nations who were very active in lobbying very aggressively for access of markets for their own benefits. The Doha agreement is thus aimed at ensuring that there is free trade in the world and that the multinationals and the rich nations do not practice protectionism.
Besides free trade, the other argument on the WTO is the constant tensions that usually arise from its member states as well as their societies. The developing nations strongly argue that the manner in which WTO is constituted cannot sufficiently address the asymmetries and difficulties of economic growth under liberalization conditions. The developed countries and international controls which they easily control like the IMF and the World Bank have in the recent past exerted a lot of pressure on the developing nations compelling them to liberalize their laws of trade despite the fact that there are uncertain serious consequences for the prospects of long run development. May be the greatest challenge for the WTO originate not from its member nations, but from groups of civil society especially the non-governmental organizations. Several social activists mainly in the movements of anti-globalization draw a lot of attention to the numerous difficulties arising as a result of liberalization in both the developing and developed nations, particularly for the members who are weaker (Gerhart, 2004).
In fact, the 7th Ministerial conference of WTO which was held in Geneva eventually turned out as a missed chance in dealing with the numerous challenges facing various nations in todays global economy. It failed to promote a new multilateral trading model that is capable of addressing effectively with decent conditions of working, employment, livelihood, gender inequalities, food security and climate change. These are aspects that have continuously generated a lot of tensions between the WTO members and the 2009 Ministerial conference was largely hoped by many members that is would come up with resolutions capable of reducing such tensions and asymmetries.
In these two arguments, there is an implication that there is need for the WTOs Ministerial Meeting to address the major issues coming up which indicate that the developed and rich nations have higher negotiating powers as compared to the poorer developing nations. Free trade as proposed by the policies of WTO can only take place if all the member nations are at the same level. Therefore, the poorer nations should be provided with some privileges under the organization so that their negotiating power can be boosted substantially. In so doing, the developing nations will be in a position to also benefit from the organization like their developed counterparts. In order to overcome the tensions arising from without, it is very important for the organization to ensure that the asymmetries that exist currently are minimized as much as possible. The policies of the WTO should therefore reflect the state of economic development of its various member states (Kos et al, 2002).
I would suggest to the class to discuss how the current process of accession into WTO is slow and what can be done to improve it. Are there issues of the current member states blocking other interested nations into joining the WTO for their own selfish goals which is against the spirit of the WTO
Conclusion
Ever since the world trade organization was established in 1995, it has carried out its main duties of promoting trade among nations in an aggressive manner. Despite the fact that to some extent it has achieved greatly in promoting international trade, it has faced a lot of criticism. Its main critique argues that its policies are more oriented towards enhancing the negotiating powers of the rich and developed nations to the detriment of the poor ones. As a result, the poor and developing nations are yet to achieve any substantial benefits from the organization despite having been accessed into it for more than a decade. The WTO should thus aim at reducing the existing tensions both from within and without so that all its members can benefit from the international trade it promotes. The developing nations should not be compelled to liberalize rapidly by the developed nations through international organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF.
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