Comprehension

Read the following Passage and answer the questions below :
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) was created in the early 1990s as a component of the Uruguay Round negotiation. However, it could have been negotiated as part of the Tokyo Round of the 1970's, since that negotiation was an attempt at a ‘constitutional reform’ of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Or it could have been put off to the future, as the US government wanted. What factors led to the creation of the WTO in the early 1990s? One factor was the pattern of multilateral bargaining that developed late in the Uruguay Round. Like all complex international agreements, the WTO was a product of a series of trade-offs between principal actors and groups. For the United States, which did not want a new organization, the dispute settlement part of the WTO package achieved its long-standing goal of a more effective and more legal dispute settlement system.
For the Europeans, who by the 1990s had come to view GATT dispute settlement less in political terms and more as a regime of legal obligations, the WTO package was acceptable as a means to discipline the resort to unilateral measures by the United States. Countries like Canada and other middle and smaller trading partners were attracted by the expansion of a rules based system and by the symbolic value of a trade organization, both of which inherently support the weak against the strong. The developing countries were attracted due to the provisions banning unilateral measures. Finally, and perhaps most important, many countries at the Uruguay Round came to put a higher priority on the export gains than on the import losses that the negotiation would produce, and they came to associate the WTO and a rules-based system with those gains. This reasoning replicated in many countries - was contained in U.S. Ambassador Kantor’s defense of the WTO, and it amounted to a recognition that international trade and its benefits cannot be enjoyed unless trading nations accept the discipline of a negotiated rules-based environment.
A second factor in the creation of the WTO was pressure from lawyers and the legal process. The dispute settlement system of the WTO was seen as a victory of legalists over pragmatists but the matter went deeper than that. The GATT, and the WTO, are contract organizations based on rules, and it is inevitable that an organization created to further rules will in turn be influenced by the legal process. Robert Hudec has written of the ‘momentum of legal development’, but what is this precisely? Legal development can be defined as promotion of the technical legal values of consistency, clarity (or, certainty) and effectiveness; these are values that those responsible for administering any legal system will seek to maximize. As it played out in the WTO, consistency meant integrating under one roof the whole lot of separate agreements signed under GATT auspices; clarity meant removing ambiguities about the powers of contracting parties to make certain decisions or to undertake waivers; and effectiveness meant eliminating exceptions arising out of grandfather-rights and resolving defects in dispute settlement procedures and institutional provisions.
Concern for these values is inherent in any rules based system of co-operation, since without these values, rules would be meaningless in the first place. Rules, therefore, create their own incentive for fulfillment. The momentum of legal development has occurred in other institutions besides the GATT, most notably in the European Union (EU).
Over the past two decades, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has consistently rendered decisions that have expanded incrementally the EU’s internal market, in which the doctrine of ‘mutual recognition’ handed down in the case Cassis de Dijon was a key turning point. The Court is now widely recognized as a major player in European integration, even though arguably such a strong role was not originally envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, which initiated the current European Union. One means the Court used to expand integration was the ‘teleological method of interpretation’ whereby the actions of member states were evaluated against ‘the accomplishment of the most elementary community goals set forth in the Preamble to the [Rome] treaty.
The teleological method represents an effort to keep current policies consistent with stated goals, and it is analogous to the effort in GATT to keep contracting party trade practices consistent with stated rules. In both cases legal concerns and procedures are an independent force for further co-operation. In large part, the WTO was an exercise in consolidation. In the context of a trade negotiation that created a near-revolutionary expansion of international trade rules, the formation of the WTO was a deeply conservative act needed to ensure that the benefits of the new rules would not be lost. The WTO was all about institutional structure and dispute settlement, these are the concerns of conservatives and not revolutionaries, which is why lawyers and legalists took the lead on these issues. The WTO codified the GATT institutional practice that had developed by custom over three decades, and it incorporated a new dispute settlement system that was necessary to keep both old and new rules from becoming a sham. Both the international structure and the dispute settlement system were necessary to preserve and enhance the integrity of the multilateral trade regime that had been built incrementally from the 1940s to the 1990s.

Question: 1

What could be the closest reason why the WTO was not formed in the 1970s?

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • The US government did not like it.
  • Important players did not find it in their best interest to do so.
  • Lawyers did not work for the dispute settlement system
  • The Tokyo round negotiations was an attempt at constitutional reform
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The Correct Option is B

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (B) : Important players did not find it in their best interest to do so.
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Question: 2

The most likely reason for the acceptance of the WTO package by nations was that

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • it had the means to prevent the US from taking unilateral measures.
  • they recognized the need for a rule-based environment to protect the benefits of increased trade.
  • it settles disputes more legally and more effectively.
  • its rule-based system leads to export gains.
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The Correct Option is B

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (B) : they recognized the need for a rule-based environment to protect the benefits of increased trade.
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Question: 3

According to the passage, WTO promoted the technical legal values partly through

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • integrating under one roof the agreements signed under GATT.
  • rules that create their own incentive for fulfillment
  • grandfather-rights exceptions and defects in dispute settlement procedures.
  • grandfather-rights exceptions and defects in dispute settlement procedures.
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (A) : integrating under one roof the agreements signed under GATT.
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Question: 4

In the method of interpretation of the European Court of Justice

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • current policies needed to be consistent with stated goals
  • contracting party trade practices needed to be consistent with stated rules.
  • enunciation of the most elementary community goals needed to be emphasized.
  • actions of member states needed to be evaluated against the stated community goals
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The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (D) : actions of member states needed to be evaluated against the stated community goals.
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Question: 5

In the statement ‘.... it amounted to a recognition that international trade and its benefits cannot be enjoyed unless trading nations accept the discipline of a negotiated rules-based environment’, ‘it’ refers to

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • Ambassador Kantor’s defence of the WTO
  • the higher priority on export gains placed by many countries at the Uruguay Round
  • the export gains many countries came to associate with a rule-based system
  • the provision of a rule-based system by the WTO.
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The Correct Option is C

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (C) : the export gains many countries came to associate with a rule-based system.
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Question: 6

The importance of Cassis de Dijon is that it

Updated On: Jul 31, 2024
  • gave a new impetus to the momentum of legal development at the European Court of Justice.
  • resulted in a decision that expanded incrementally the EU’s internal market
  • strengthened the role of the Court more than envisaged in the Treaty of Rome.
  • led to a doctrine that was a key turning point in European integration.
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The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

The correct option is (D) : led to a doctrine that was a key turning point in European integration.
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