LGST

forbids provisions commonly found in foreign investment laws that distort or reduce international trade, including provisions that discriminate against foreigners and that impose quantitative restrictions on the use of foreign products b foreign-owned local enterprises

Agreement on Trade-related Investment Measures (TRIMs Agreement) (technical barriers to trade)

allows WTO developing member states to use pre-shipment inspections, but it also tries to limit its harmful trade affects. Users must ensure several things (tranparency, non-discriminatory matters, inspections carried out in state of exporting or manufacturing state, etc.) Central to the PSI process is the verification of prices

Agreement on pre-shipment inspection

Defines the measures that WTO members states may take to protect the life and health of humans, animals and plants

Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) (technical barriers to trade)

establishes rules governing the way WTO members states draft, adopt, and apply technical regulations and standards to ensure they: provide an appropriate level of protection for life and health humans, animals, plans and environment.

Agreements on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement)

a financial contribution made by a government or other public body that confers a benefit on an enterprise, or a group of enterprise, or an industry

subsidy

a group of states that have reduced or eliminated tariffs among themselves but that maintain their own individual tariffs in dealings with other states

Free trade area

a subsidy that may be challenged as trade distorting if it injures the domestic industry of another WTO member state, nullifies or impairs the benefits due another member state, or causes or threatens to cause serious prejudice to the interests of another member state.

actionable subsidy

selling exported goods at prices below their value

dumping

seeks to ensure that import-licensing procedures are neutral in their application and administered in a fair and equitable manner. Forms and procedures are to be as simple as possible and applicants should have to deal only with a single administrative body

Agreement on Import-Licensing Procedures

establishes multilateral controls over the use of safeguards by WTO member states

Agreement on Safeguards

classifies subsidies as prohibited, actionable, and non-actionable. It forbids the first class and allows affected WTO members states to request consultation, to obtain a remedy from the WTO, or to impose countervailing duties independently

Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SMC agreement)

establishes a process for the phasing-out of existing special arrangement governing international trade in textiles and clothing and the integration of those products into the GATT system

Agreement on Textiles and clothing

allows the WTO members states to counter dumping through the application of anti-dumping duties

Anti-dumping code

a multilateral group of states concerned with curbing the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons.

Australia Group

the highest tariff rates a WTO member state may set on imports from another member state

Bound tariff rates

Intergovernmental agreements regulating the production and supply of primary commodities

Commodity arrangements

Customs value of gods that is based on their price calculated from the cost of manufacture, overhead, and handling.

Computed value

designed to harmonise the methods used by WTO members states to determine the value of those goods- meant to provide a fair, neutral, and uniform system of customs valuation

Customs Valuation Code (Agreement on Implement Articles VII of GATT 1994)

a group of states that have reduced or eliminated tariffs among themselves and have also established a common external tariff

Customs unions

customs value of imported goods that is based on the price actually paid for similar goods by unrelated persons in the importing country at about the same time

Deductive value

customs value of goods that is determined by using whichever of the other methods best fit and adjusting it to particular circumstances

Derived value

Allows a WTO member state to escape temporarily from its GATT obligations when there is a surge in the number of imports coming from other member states

Escape clause

multilateral agreement that set out the rules under which the contracting state parties were committed to negotiate reduction in customs tariffs and other impediments to international trade goods (1947)

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

carries on the functions of the ministerial Conference in the intervals between the meetings of the Conference. It also functions as the WTOs Dispute Settlement Body, Trade Policy Review Body, Council for Trade in Goods, Council for Trade in Services, and Council for Trade-Related Aspects of IPR.

General Council

Situations that excuse a WTO member state from complying with its GATT obligations in order for the state to protect certain essential public policy objectives

General Exceptions

A GATT scheme that allows a developing state to obtain tariff concessions from a developed state on a non-reciprocal basis

Generalized System of Preferences

A system of classifying goods or customs purposes established by the Convention on Nomenclature for the Classification of Goods in Custom Tariffs

Harmonised System (HS)

Proposal of developing countries that would establish a Common Fund to underwrite the cost of maintaining a buffer stock of primary commodities as a way to stabilize supplies

Integrated Program for Commodities (IPC)

mandatory laws and provisions specifying; the characteristics of products, the processes and production methods of creating products and the terminology, symbols, packaging, marking or labeling requirements for products, processes, or production methods.

Technical regulations (technical barriers to trade)

GATT MTNs held from 1964 to 1967 that established the practice of setting an agenda for and defining the techniques to be used during GATT negotiations

Kennedy round

meets at least every other year to oversee the operation of the WTO

Ministerial Conference

a group of states concerned with limiting the proliferation of missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads

Missile Technology Control Regime

when a GATT member nation sets a favorable tariff rate on a particular type of goods imported from one GATT member, that member nation may not assess a higher tariff on the particular type of goods being imported from any GATT nation.

Most-favored-nation-status

"integral parts" of the WTO Agreement and are "binding on all members" of the WTO. They consist of (1) 14 Agreements on Trade in Goods (including GATT 1994), (2) the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), (3) the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), (4) the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU), and (5) the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The

Multilateral trade agreements of the WTO

once goods are legally imported, they must be treated the same as domestic goods

National treatment principle

a group of nuclear supplier states concerned with limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)

they are only binding on those member states that have accepted them. They "do not create either obligations or rights for members that have not accepted them."

Plurilateral trade agreements of the WTO

products obtained by extraction or harvest that require minimal processing before being used

Primary commodities

Situations that excuse a WTO member state from complying with its GATT obligations when those are in conflict with its essential security interests or its duties under the United Nations Charter

Security exceptions

A GATT scheme that allows developing states to grant tariff preferences to each other without having to grant them to developed states

South-South preferences

governmental charges imposed on goods at the time they are imported into a state

Tariffs

establishes guidelines for initiating a process of reform to progressively integrate international trade in agricultural products into the GATT system

The Agreement on Agriculture

establishes three-year program aimed at bringing about an international system of harmonized rules of origin

The agreement on the Rules of Origin

GATT MTNs held from 1973 to 1979 that produced six nontariff codes

Tokyo round

customs value of imported goods that is based on the price actually paid or payable for goods at the time when were sold for export

Transaction value

Principle that governments must make their rules, regulations, and practices open and accessible to the public and other governments

Transparency

trade regulations must be published and available to all other GATT nations and their nationals

Transparent

GATT MTNs held from 1986 to 1994 that resulted in the establishment of the WTO. Representatives of 108 states signed its Final Act.

Uruguay round

Intergovernmental arrangement and organisation to coordinate national policies so that transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies do not contribute to the development or enhancement of military capabilities that undermine international and regional security and are not diverted to support such capabilities.

Wassenaar Arrangement

exporting states parties to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that seek to harmonize their interpretations of the treaty;s export-control provision

Zangger Committee

any procedure uses, directly or indirectly, to determine that relevant requirements in technical regulations or standards are fulfilled

conformity assessment procedures ( technical barriers to trade)

a duty specifically levied to offset a subsidy

countervailing measure

where a particular good was obtained or, when more than one country is involved in its productions, the one in which the last substantial transformation is carried out.

country of origin

a subsidy that is permissible and non-challengeable, such as government funding to underwrite research activities, to aid disadvantaged regions, or to help existing facilities adapt to new environmental requirements

non-actionable subsidy

a subsidy that is presumed to be trade distorting because it requires export performance or is contingent upon the use of domestic instead of imported goods.

prohibited subsidy

a meeting of the contracting parties of GATT who participated in the multilateral trade negotiations

round

regulations and administrative procedures used by states for determining the country of origin of goods

rules of origin

emergency actions that a WTO member state may take to protect its domestic industries from serious injury from a a sudden increase in quantity of an imported product

safeguards

voluntary guidelines that specify the same things that technical regulations mandatory specify

standards (technical barriers to trade)