Peace and Prosperity Through Trade

There is a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion about what the World Trade Organization (WTO) is, what it does, and how it works. The misconceptions, myths and fallacies about the WTO are numerous, but the author focuses on a few key questions central to the legitimacy of the WTO. Who and what is the WTO – what is its fundamental mission? Are the decisions made by WTO dispute settlement bodies arbitrary, unfair and lacking in democratic accountability? Does the WTO infringe on the sovereignty of national governments? What is the role of developing countries, and the least developed among them, in the world trading system? What can be done to improve the public image of the WTO and to make it more accountable to its constituents? The author, a former senior negotiator for Canada in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and the first Director of the WTO Appellate Body Secretariat, provides answers to this difficult questions in clear and simple terms by describing the history and purpose of the WTO as well as its future challenges