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The WTO Secretariat is located in Geneva. Its responsibilities include:

  •  Administrative and technical support for WTO delegate bodies (councils, committees, working parties, negotiating groups) for negotiations and the implementation of agreements.

  •  Technical support for developing countries, and especially the least-developed.

  •  Trade performance and trade policy analysis by WTO economists and statisticians.

  •  Assistance from legal staff in the resolution of trade disputes.

  •  Dealing with accession negotiations for new members. 

The WTO Secretariat

Levels of authority

Highest authority: The Ministerial Conference.

The countries make their decisions through various councils and committees, whose membership consists of all WTO members. The Ministerial Conference has to meet at least once every two years. The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements.

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Second level: General Council in three guises.

Work in between the ministerial conferences is handled by three bodies:

  • The General Council

  • The Dispute Settlement Body

  • The Trade Policy Review Body

The Agreement Establishing the WTO states are the General Council. The General Council acts on behalf of the Ministerial Conference on all WTO affairs. It meets as the Dispute Settlement Body and the Trade Policy Review Body.

 

Third level:Councils for each broad area of trade.

Three more councils, each handling a different broad area of trade, report to the General Council:

  •  The Council for Trade in Goods (Goods Council)

  •  The Council for Trade in Services (Services Council)

  •  The Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Council)

The three are responsible for the workings of the WTO agreements dealing with their respective areas of trade.

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Fourth level: Each of the higher-level councils has subsidiary bodies.

Six other bodies report to the General Council. They are “committees”, and cover issues such as trade and development, the environment, regional trading arrangements, administrative issues, investment and competition policy, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation.

Two more bodies dealing with the plurilateral agreements keep the General Council informed of their activities regularly.

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The need for informality

Since decisions are made by consensus, informal consultations within the WTO play a vital role in bringing diverse membership round to an agreement.

The membership as a whole would resist attempts to impose the will of a small group. So, informal consultations play a vital role in allowing consensus to be reached, but they do not appear in organization charts. They are necessary for making formal decisions in the councils and committees.

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