The post-World War II era has been characterized by a global movement toward liberalizing trade and creating frameworks under which trade disputes can be avoided and resolved. In particular, the trade agreements of the last half-century can be seen as adopting the view that government bodies need a global legal framework to ensure that they effectively conform their countries' policies and laws with their citizens' interests. Legal theorists posit that trade policy failure, in both the global and domestic arenas, as well as inequitable power dynamics among countries engaged in trade negotiations, are the products of a legal architecture that does not sufficiently discipline how governments represent their citizens' interests. In this vein, the international trade law regime has attempted to strengthen its enforcement mechanism over time to ensure that national governments comply with trade law despite shifting domestic pressures. As international trade law has developed, there has been interplay between domestic and global trade law. Initially, international trade agreements focused on tariffs, but, over time, they have broadened to encompass aspects of domestic policymaking and establish fairly stringent dispute settlement mechanisms. This interplay, however, has led to criticism that trade agreements infringe national sovereignty and autonomy by (1) limiting the kinds of policy decisions a country can make and (2) giving international trade dispute settlement bodies too much power to shape and constrain domestic law. This report provides an overview of the legal framework that governs trade-related measures. This framework is composed of both international agreements and domestic laws. The particular agreements and statutes selected for this report are those that are most commonly implicated by U.S. trade interests and policy. This report is not intended to be a comprehensive review of trade law. Often, a single trade issue, such as dumping (the sale of goods in foreign markets at lower prices than in the domestic market), is governed by both international agreements and federal laws. Accordingly, this report first discusses international trade agreements and then turns to domestic law. The United States has international trade obligations under (1) the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, which include the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and other "covered agreements"; (2) its own free trade agreements; and (3) other international agreements with narrower policy goals, such as the conservation of natural resources. The scope of this report, however, is limited to obligations incurred under agreements that seek to liberalize international trade. In the WTO context, trade agreements are categorized as either multilateral (accepted by all WTO Members as a condition of membership) or plurilateral (accepted by only some WTO Members). Other free trade agreements may be classified as bilateral agreements (which bind only two countries) and regional agreements (which bind countries within a discrete region of the world). No matter their classification, most trade agreements have a corresponding body of domestic law. After World War II, developed nations sought to establish an open trade network to facilitate the recovery of the global economy. These negotiations yielded a proposal for an International Trade Organization (ITO), and, as a temporary fix until the ITO Charter could be negotiated, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs 1947 (GATT 1947). The expectation was that the GATT 1947 would expire once a more comprehensive trade agreement, the ITO Charter, was developed and ratified. Then the ITO would interpret and administer the ITO Charter. However, the ITO never materialized, and, therefore, despite its provisional nature, the GATT 1947 became a permanent fixture in international trade. Nevertheless, to dispel any concern that an international organization had been established, the GATT 1947 signatories continued to be called "Contracting Parties" rather than "Members." Moreover, the GATT 1947 was not considered a comprehensive trade agreement because it consisted mainly of the commercial policy provisions of the ITO charter. Partly as a response to concerns about the GATT 1947's strength and breadth, Contracting Parties engaged in a series of "rounds" of multilateral trade negotiations over the ensuing decades: the Dillon Round (1960-1962), the Kennedy Round (1964-1967), the Tokyo Round (1973-1979), the Uruguay Round (1986-1994), and the ongoing Doha Development Round. Each round of talks sought to liberalize new markets, lower tariffs, and identify solutions to different kinds of trade barriers. It was not until the Uruguay Round that the Contracting Parties finally reached an agreement on a charter for an international trade organization: the WTO. The agreements completed in the Uruguay Round are detailed in the Marrakesh Agreement. Part of this Agreement is the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization (the WTO Agreement). The other texts negotiated during the Uruguay Round are annexed to the WTO Agreement. Annex 1 contains 13 multilateral agreements on trade in goods as well as the General Agreement on Trade in Services and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Annex 2 contains the Dispute Settlement Understanding, which sets out the process by which WTO Members may resolve disputes over the meaning or application of a WTO agreement. Annex 3 contains a Trade Policy Review mechanism, providing for periodic review of a WTO Member's trade laws and policies. Annexes 1 through 3, and the agreements therein, must be accepted by a country as a condition of its membership in the WTO. Accordingly, all of these agreements, along with the other provisions of the Marrakesh Agreement, were approved and implemented in U.S. law through the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA, P.L. 103-465 , 19 U.S.C. §3501 et seq. ), which then-President Bill Clinton signed into law on December 8, 1994. The GATT 1994, which is found in Annex I of the WTO Agreement, consists of (a) the GATT 1947, (b) certain protocols, waivers, and tariff concessions made pursuant to the GATT 1947, and (c) interpretations of particular language and provisions of the GATT 1947. At its most general, the GATT sets the maximum tariffs for particular goods and countries and disciplines certain trade-restricting measures adopted by WTO Members. This report surveys many of the articles of the GATT that are considered fundamental as well as those that are frequently raised in WTO consultations or disputes over a WTO Member's domestic trade measures. The GATT seeks to prohibit WTO Members from discriminating between "like products" on the basis of their origins. More specifically, the GATT bars WTO Members from discriminating between like products because they originated in different WTO Members or because they originated in a WTO Member's territory rather than domestically. The GATT articles that lay out this prohibition, Article I and Article III, are therefore known as the nondiscrimination provisions. Although "like product" is used in both provisions, the GATT does not offer a single precise and absolute definition of the term. Consequently, to determine whether two products are "like," WTO panels and the Appellate Body engage in a case-by-case analysis to discern whether the two products are in a competitive relationship given the products' properties and end uses, consumer preferences, and tariff classification. Article I: Most Favored Nation Treatment Article I of the GATT requires WTO Members to grant immediate and unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment to the products of other Members. This means that any "advantage" that a WTO Member grants in the context of customs duties or rules regarding importation or exportation to any product imported from one country, whether a WTO Member or not, must also be granted to any "like" product imported from all WTO Members. The term "advantage" in Article I:1 has been given a very broad definition to encompass any more favorable competitive opportunity or commercial status relative to those of like products destined to different WTO Members. It can include, for example, variations in both the procedural and administrative requirements for imports. As a result, variations in the licensing requirements for imports can constitute an advantage under Article I:1. In EC – Bananas III , for example, a WTO panel ruled that the European Union had accorded an origin-discriminatory advantage to the products of some WTO Members by imposing additional licensing requirements on imports from other WTO Members. Notably, a measure may be deemed to accord an advantage even if it is written in origin neutral terms. Similarly, two products may be deemed "like" under Article I:1 even if they are subject to different tariff classifications or, for other reasons, are not exact duplicates. WTO panels and the Appellate Body assess the "likeness" of two products by examining their characteristics, their end-uses, their tariff classification, and consumers' tastes and habits. Where a complaining Member demonstrates that the difference in treatment between imported products is based exclusively on the products' different origins, a WTO panel will presume that there can or will be discrimination between imported products that are "like." Although it is often difficult in other cases to predict whether a given measure would affect "like" products from WTO Members, a measure that affects a broad range of products may be likely to result in discrimination between at least some "like" imports. Once a measure is found to have conferred a trade advantage that affects "like" products, that measure will be deemed inconsistent with Article I:1 if it fails to accord the advantage "unconditionally." WTO panels have adopted different interpretations of the term "unconditionally, " but their decisions suggest that conditions may be attached to an advantage only if they do not discriminate, either on their face or as applied, between "like" products on the basis of their countries of origin or destination. For example, an advantage is not accorded "unconditionally" if some countries have to do or pay something to receive it.