The World Trade Organizaiton - The WTO

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements which are signed by representatives of member governments[5]:fol.9-10 and ratified by their parliaments.[6] Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).

The organization is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on addressing the needs of developing countries. As of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remains uncertain: The work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed (So was the next unofficial target of the end of 2006.)[7] The further imposition of free trade on industrial goods and services and the protectionism on farm subsidies to domestic agricultural sector requested from the developed countries, and the substantiation of the international liberalization of fair trade on agricultural products from developing countries remain the major obstacles. These points of contention have hindered any progress to launch new WTO negotiation(s) beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result of this impasse, there has been an increasing amount of bilateral free trade agreements[8].

WTO's current Director-General is Pascal Lamy, who leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, Switzerland. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organisation