From the GATT to the WTO

I joined the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) on a very cold day in March 1974 as a temporary member of staff recruited along with others to help developing countries elaborate a negotiating strategy for the Tokyo Round negotiations. The Director-General was Olivier Long; he was only the second Director-General since the establishment of the organisation in 1948, underscoring the sense of continuity typical of its earlier history. The GATT in 1974 consisted of two departments, A and B, and its staff amounted to fewer than a hundred officers, counting both professional and general services. Department A dealt with trade policy matters and Department B with development policy. Legal matters and dispute settlement proper was exclusively under Department A. Department B essentially dealt with Part IV of the GATT, dealing with trade and development, which had the connotation of a best-endeavour type of obligation, not a legally binding one.