A propos de l’OMC

In 2011, the Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation (ITTC) strengthened its measures designed to improve both content and delivery of WTO technical assistance and training programmes, reinforced its capacity to interact with beneficiaries in all regions and bolstered its coordinating role for trade capacity building. The WTO undertook 267 technical assistance activities, with particular emphasis on Africa and least-developed countries (LDCs). A results-based management initiative was formally introduced covering the design, management and delivery of capacitybuilding programmes.

Currently, the WTO has 164 Members. They are listed in the table below according to their designated full names as of the date of membership, or according to the names as subsequently submitted to the WTO Secretariat. In line with the practice of the WTO Secretariat, the remaining sections of this publication use the short names of Members as listed in the latest revision to document WT/INF/43/Rev.22, except in the titles of relevant accession protocols.

Le Yémen a accédé à l’OMC en juin 2014, ce qui a porté à 160 le nombre de Membres de l’OMC. En décembre, le Conseil général a adopté les modalités d’accession des Seychelles, ouvrant ainsi la voie à l’entrée du pays dans l’OMC en avril 2015. Plusieurs autres pays candidats ont avancé dans leur processus d’accession. L’OMC a renforcé son programme d’assistance technique pour les gouvernements accédants.

En 2012, la coopération avec les établissements universitaires a été axée sur trois activités principales: l’examen à mi-parcours du Programme des chaires de l’OMC (PCO), la réunion annuelle des parties prenantes du PCO et le parrainage des projets d’universités ne bénéficiant pas du PCO. Cinquante-quatre activités ont été menées à l’appui d’établissements universitaires de pays en développement et de pays moins avancés: conférences, parrainage de projets universitaires, séminaires régionaux et nationaux, participation à des conférences universitaires, visites d’étude à l’OMC et dons de publications de l’OMC à des universités.

Earlier Sections in this Report have sought to understand why international cooperation in trade matters seems to make sense to governments and how such cooperation translates into institutions and rules. We will now focus on the main achievements of multilateral trade cooperation over the last six decades and explore some of the core challenges and issues that the system faces today. The Section begins with a brief historical journey from the birth of the GATT to the establishment of the WTO. Subsection 2 records the efforts of governments over the years to reduce tariffs and address non-tariff measures. It also discusses briefly what can be said about the relationship between the GATT/WTO’s role in reducing and consolidating tariffs and the growth of trade. Subsection 3 analyses the evolution of dispute settlement in the GATT/ WTO, focusing on how the system has developed and performed during the last six decades. The theme of subsection 4 is developing country participation in the multilateral trading system. The subsection focuses on how developing country issues have increasingly found their way onto the multilateral agenda and the systemic challenges posed by a heterogeneous membership with divergent needs, interests and priorities. Subsection 5 addresses the phenomenon of regionalism and how the multilateral trading system has attempted to address burgeoning regional and bilateral trade policy tendencies. Subsection 6 deals with two procedural issues that have far-reaching systemic implications and go to the heart of legitimacy questions confronting the WTO. The subjects at hand are decision-making processes in the WTO and the relationship between the WTO and the outside world – specifically, non-state actors. Finally, subsection 7 explores the complex question of what can be said about how the WTO agenda is shaped and whether there exists a meaningful sense in which limits may be set to subject areas for cooperation under the WTO.

The multilateral trading system has the function of regulating international cooperation in the ever-expanding area of trade. The system promotes freer trade and non-discrimination. Consequently, it must be underpinned by good and efficient disciplines as well as strong institutions.

The thought is the father to the deed, and the multilateral trading system could never have been built if it had not first been imagined. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is not the product of just one idea, however, or even one school of thought. It instead represents the confluence of, and sometimes the conflict between, three distinct areas of theory and practice. Law, economics and politics have each inspired and constrained the capacity of countries to work together for the creation and maintenance of a rules-based regime in which members with widely different levels of economic development and asymmetrical political power work together to reduce barriers to trade. It is therefore fitting to begin this history with a review of the intellectual prehistory of the WTO, as well as the contemporary debates surrounding each of these fields.

En 2013, la OMC cooperó con varias organizaciones intergubernamentales, como las Naciones Unidas, la Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE), el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) y el Banco Mundial. La OMC publicó, con la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Comercio y Desarrollo (UNCTAD) y la OCDE, informes conjuntos sobre la evolución del comercio y la inversión en los países del G-20.

Hong Kong’s overall approach to the TRIPS negotiations was made clear to the other participants from an early stage: Hong Kong held itself out as the exemplar of free trade, with a mature, respected legal system, providing comprehensive protection across the range of IP to right holders.