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The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

John W. Evans
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Extract

Among the features that distinguish the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GAIT) from other international organizations concerned with the trade of less developed countries are two that are especially significant. GATT is the only interregional organization in which the undertakings by members take the form of contractual commitments. It is also an organization that is concerned with trade not only between developed and less developed countries but within these two groups as well. The question can be raised, however, as to whether an organization so constituted and oriented is suited to the task of facilitating the export earnings of the less developed countries or whether, on the contrary, a more specialized body, devoted exclusively to that task, is likely to achieve better results.

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Articles
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International Organization , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , Winter 1968, pp. 72 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1968

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References

1 Brazil, Burma, Ceylon, Chile, Cuba, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Syria. Throughout this essay the category of less developed countries does not include any country of Europe, Rhodesia, Israel, or Yugoslavia.

2 Article XVIII, in its 1947 version, provided that less developed countries and countries engaged in postwar reconstruction could be released from the relevant obligations of the GATT in order to provide special protection to “particular industries” but only in accordance with specified criteria and procedures. Different criteria and procedures were specified for dealing with requests for release from the obligation not to increase tariffs that had been “bound” and die obligation not to use quantitative restrictions (quotas) for protecting a domestic industry against competition.

3 The nine listed in note 1 above plus Afghanistan, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, die Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Transjordan, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

4 Wilcox, Clair, A Charter for World Trade (New York: Macmillan, 1949), pp. 48–49Google Scholar.

5 United States administrations have continued their participation in GATT under the President's executive powers, supplemented by the authority delegated in the 1945 extension of the Trade Agreements Act and its successor acts.

6 Ambassador K. B. Lall of India at the Seventh World Conference of the Society for International Development.

7 United States Tariff Commission, Operation of the Trade Agreements Program, June 1934–April 1948 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1949Google Scholar), Part III, Tables 33, 34, 35, and 36.

8 Direct comparison is rendered difficult by the more or less total revision of United States tariff classifications since 1962.

9 Ibid., Part IV, Table 7.

10 Ibid., Part IV, Table 33.

11 The details of these cases, including the factors taken into account, are set forth in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Basic Instruments and Selected Documents, Vol. II: Decisions, Declarations, Resolutions, Rulings and Reports (Geneva, 05 1952)Google Scholar; and First, Second, Third, and Fourth Supplements (Geneva, various dates).

12 Article XXIV of the GATT exempts from the basic requirement of nondiscrimination: a completed customs union or free trade area and an “interim agreement” to achieve such a union or area “within a reasonable length of time” according to a plan and schedule that is not disapproved by the Contracting Parties.

13 Roberto de Oliveira Campos, Gottfried Haberler, James Meade, and Jan Tinbergen.

14 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Trends in International Trade: A Report by a Panel of Experts (Geneva, 10 1958)Google Scholar.

15 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Committee on the Legal and Institutional Framework, Proposed Chapter on Trade and Development: Comparative Provisions of Five Submissions (Geneva, 02 24, 1964)Google Scholar.

16 Part IV, Article XXXVII, of the Agreement, contained in General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Basic Instruments and Selected Documents, Thirteenth Supplement: Decisions, Reports, etc., of the Second Special Session and the Twenty-second Session (Geneva, 07 1965), pp. 4–6Google Scholar.

17 Article XXXVIII, in ibid., pp. 6–7.

18 Article XXXVI, in ibid., p. 4.

19 “GATT Trade Negotiations: Brief Summary of Results,” GATT Press Release GATT/992, June 30, 1967.

20 Similar results, however, are revealed in a GATT analysis, prepared after this essay was completed, based on actual less developed country trade. This study (GATT Documents COM TD/48, October 19, 1967, and COM TD/48/Add.1, October 26, 1967) gives the distribution of Kennedy Round concessions as they affect less developed country exports (1964) in selected product groups (tropical products, processed foods, nonferrous metals, cotton yarn and fabrics, clothing, other textiles, and leather and manufactures) to six major industrialized participants (the EEC, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Forty-five percent of this trade was admitted duty free before die Kennedy Round. Of the dutiable trade covered, tariffs on 60 percent were reduced or eliminated, over 40 percent being subject to tariff cuts of 50 percent or more.

21 “GATT Trade Negotiations: Brief Summary of Results,” GATT Press Release GATT/992, June 30, 1967.

22 “Joint Statement by the Developing Participating Countries in the Kennedy Round Negotiations,” GATT Press Release GATT/994, June 30, 1967.

23 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, International Trade 1965 (Geneva, 1966), pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 27.

25 Ibid., p. 2.

26 See, for example, Johnson, Harry G., Economic Policies Toward Less Developed Countries (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1967), pp. 96–104Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., p. 96.

28 Article XXXVVIII, contained in GATT, Basic Instruments and Selected Documents, Thirteenth Supplement, p. 7Google Scholar.