Abstract
The implementation of a multilateral trade and payments system was facilitated by the establishment of the Fund and the Bank. It proved more difficult to reach agreement on the reduction of customs duties and the abolition of quantitative restrictions and discriminations, partly owing to the fact that these matters were more closely bound up with balance-of-payments equilibrium. In order to avoid a recurrence of the protectionism of the 1930s vigorous efforts were necessary to dismantle these various kinds of trade barriers. This chapter is devoted to the action taken in this respect within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and later the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The GATT is an institution blessed with an objective that can never be achieved, namely free trade reciprocally negotiated. It is nevertheless uncertain whether it will show the same capacity for survival as the early Christian Church whose object, the perfectibility of mankind, has proved at least equally difficult to achieve.
Edmund Dell
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Bibliography
A. GATT-WTO publications
Basic Instruments and selected documents and their Supplements for official texts. See also, The results of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The legal texts,1994.
The annual report: International trade 19..119… Since December 1964, the International Trade Centre has issued a quarterly review, Forum,and a large number of publications on marketing and export promotion.
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C. The Customs Cooperation Council
While GATT is concerned with problems of economic policy, the Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) is a technical body for the study of customs problems. The convention establishing the CCC was signed in Brussels on 15 December 1950 and came into force on 4 November 1952. Its main purpose is to assemble the executive machinery for the interpretation and application of two other conventions signed also on 15 December 1950— the Convention on Nomenclature for the Classification of Goods in Customs Tariffs and the Convention on the Valuation of Goods for Customs Purposes.
The first convention, which entered into force on 11 September 1959, set up the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature (BTN). The tariffs of many countries and regional organizations (including the EEC and EFTA) are based on the BTN. The aim of the second convention, which came into force on 28 July 1953, is to achieve maximum uniformity in the valuation of goods for customs purposes.
The International Convention on the harmonized commodity description and coding system was signed by the EEC states and 18 other countries on 10 June 1985. The Convention was developed over 10 years by experts from 60 countries. The harmonized system brings together in a single, integrated instrument the descriptions needed for customs tariffs, statistical nomenclatures and transport classifications. It will replace the Customs Cooperation Council Nomenclature.
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van Meerhaeghe, M.A.G. (1998). The World Trade Organization. In: International Economic Institutions. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5565-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5565-7_4
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