1 - Overview
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Summary
The ITO, the GATT, and the WTO
Bretton Woods and the Havana Charter
Even as World War II was being fought, allied leaders began to plan for the post-war world which, they hoped, would not be characterized by the economic isolationism that had marked the pre-war years. Many believed that this contributed in no small way to the deepening of the Great Depression and the onset of war. In a 1941 speech entitled “Post-War Commercial Policy,” United States Undersecretary of State Sumner Wells said:
Nations have more often than not undertaken economic discriminations and raised up trade barriers with complete disregard for the damaging effects on the trade and livelihood of other peoples, and ironically enough, with similar disregard for the harmful resultant effects upon their own export trade.
The resultant misery, bewilderment, and resentment, together with other equally pernicious contributing causes, paved the way for the rise of those very dictatorships which have plunged almost the entire world into war.
These economic concerns eventually led to the famed July 1944 conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and the resulting “Bretton Woods organizations,” the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (commonly known as the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. Probably because Bretton Woods was attended only by representatives of finance ministries and not by representatives of trade ministries, an agreement covering trade was not negotiated there.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dispute Settlement in the World Trade OrganizationPractice and Procedure, pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.
- 2
- Cited by