# **1. WTO accession in context**

# _The fundamental dilemma of WTO accession_

With a view “to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world’s people,” the international community committed to “develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable, and non discriminatory” (United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) No. 8). The set of non-discriminatory trading rules embedded in the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements has the characteristics of a global public good, and the WTO, as the main institutional framework for the conduct of trade relations, directly contributes to development and to the fight against world poverty. Acceding to the WTO implies sharing responsibility in the management of this global public good and the objective of universal membership for the WTO seems _prima facie_ a worthwhile goal.

However, the WTO faces a fundamental dilemma. On one hand, it inherits from the old tradition of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), whereby countries contribute to the objective of promoting trade “by entering into reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce.” (Preamble of the GATT 1947 and 1994) In other terms, accession to the WTO implies “reciprocity” and “mutual advantages”, and therefore excludes a “free” membership. On the other hand, the central position of the WTO in the world trading system and the objective of universal membership suggest that the “cost” of accession should be kept as low as possible, so as to not exclude the poorest countries. With both a mercantilist heritage and as the institutional vessel for a global public good, the institution faces tensions that become evident in the experience of its accession procedures.

# _A historical perspective on GATT/WTO accessions_

The history of the GATT, and then the WTO, could be characterized as a successful one if the size of its membership were to be taken as the relevant parameter to measure success. On January 1, 1948 the GATT was signed by 23 countries;<sup>1</sup> in the following years, the number of contracting parties increased, reaching 50 in the early 1960s, 100 in the early 1970s, and 150 in 2005. The membership also became more diversified, with a majority of developing countries (since 1960) and the accession of many transition economies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over six decades, the number of contracting parties to the GATT has increased by nearly 130, with about 30 additional countries currently with an observer status and in the process of negotiating WTO accession.<sup>2</sup> Not all these countries have been through the same accession process, however. In particular, as pointed by VanGrasstek (2001), the majority of developing countries that joined the GATT did not actually accede, but rather succeeded to GATT status. In the post-World War II period, many countries that gained independence from colonial powers had the option of entering the GATT under the special terms of GATT Art. XXVI:5(c), and acquired _de facto_ GATT status, before converting this status into full GATT contracting party status by succession – a process that was much less stringent that the ordinary accession process under GATT Art. XXXIII. In total, 64

> 1 Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, China, Cuba, the Czechoslovak Republic, France India, Lebanon, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, Syria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

> 2 See the summary table of ongoing accessions on www.wto.org.

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