The World Trade Organization is an international organization dedicated to supervising and promoting world trade. It was established on January 1, 1995, with 104 countries as its founding members. The predecessor of the World Trade Organization was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade established in 1947. At that time, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was established not to allow it to exist for a long time, but to replace it with the International Trade Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, as soon as possible. However, since it has made smooth progress and achieved great success in relaxing world trade restrictions and promoting the development of world trade in the 50 years since its establishment, it has existed until 1995, and the original idea of establishing an international trade organization has never been realized. However, in the 1990s, due to the rapid development of the world economy, especially the economy of developing countries, and the continuous development of the trend of economic globalization, world trade has presented many complex situations while developing rapidly. In particular, with the changes in the world trade pattern, many new contradictions and disputes have emerged, and the call for the establishment of a strong world multilateral trade organization to control and resolve trade disputes, reduce trade frictions, and promote the development of world trade has become increasingly louder. It was in response to this situation that, at the last meeting of the Uruguay Round in 1994, a resolution was made to formally end the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and establish the World Trade Organization.
On January 1, 1995, the World Trade Organization was formally established. Its purpose is to promote the development of world economy and trade to improve living standards, ensure full employment, and guarantee the growth of real income and effective demand; to rationally utilize world resources and expand the production of goods and services in accordance with the goal of sustainable development; to reach mutually beneficial agreements, to significantly reduce and eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers, and to eliminate discriminatory treatment in international trade. The International Trade Organization is an important international organization on an equal footing with international organizations such as the United Nations in law. According to the resolution, all members of the World Trade Organization shall abide by and implement all agreements of the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, including the agreement of the last meeting of the Uruguay Round. In addition, the World Trade Organization is also responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements, for regularly reviewing the trade policies of its member countries and for uniformly handling trade disputes between member countries; and for strengthening cooperation with the IMF and the World Bank to achieve consistency in global economic policies.
The World Trade Organization is managed by the Ministerial Conference, the General Council and the Director-General. The Ministerial Conference is held every two years. The General Council is responsible for implementing the relevant policy resolutions of the Ministerial Conference and daily administrative affairs. The Director-General is appointed by the Ministerial Conference. The General Council has three councils for goods trade, non-goods trade, and intellectual property rights, and two committees for trade and development budget. In addition, there is a trade policy review agency that is responsible for supervising the work of each committee and drafting evaluation reports on national policies. The headquarters of the World Trade Organization is located in Geneva, Switzerland.