Editing World Trade Organization (section)

===GATT negotiations before Uruguay===
{{Main|General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade}}

Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] (1949 to 1979). The first real{{citation needed|date=March 2020}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/gattbilaterals_e/indexbyround_e.htm|title=WTO &#124; GATT bilateral negotiating material by Round|publisher=World Trade Organization|access-date=17 August 2023|archive-date=30 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730211639/https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/gattbilaterals_e/indexbyround_e.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> GATT trade rounds (1947 to 1960) concentrated on further reducing [[tariff]]s. Then the [[Kennedy Round]] in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT [[Dumping (pricing policy)|anti-dumping]] agreement and a section on development. The Tokyo Round during the seventies represented the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that do not take the form of tariffs, and to improve the system, adopting a series of agreements on  [[Non-tariff barriers to trade|non-tariff barriers]], which in some cases interpreted existing GATT rules, and in others broke entirely new ground. Because not all GATT members accepted these [[plurilateral agreement]]s, they were often informally called "codes". (The Uruguay Round amended several of these codes and turned them into multilateral commitments accepted by all WTO members. Only four remained plurilateral (those on government procurement, bovine meat, civil aircraft, and dairy products), but in 1997 WTO members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy agreements, leaving only two.<ref name=" GY">[http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact4_e.htm "The GATT Years: from Havana to Marrakesh"]. {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20041211025038/http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact4_e.htm |date= 11 December 2004 }}. World Trade Organization.</ref>) Despite attempts in the mid-1950s and 1960s to establish some form of institutional mechanism for international trade, the GATT continued to operate for almost half a century as a semi-institutionalized multilateral treaty régime on a provisional basis.<ref name="F17">
Footer, M. E. ''Analysis of the World Trade Organization'', 17.
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