These agreements are not static; they are renegotiated from time to time and new agreements can be added to the package. Many of them are currently being negotiated within the framework of the Doha Development Agenda, launched in November 2001 by WTO Trade Ministers in Doha, Qatar. The agreement also provides for the obligation to eliminate non-tariff barriers in the information technology sector and to review the list of products covered to determine whether further expansion is necessary to take account of future technological developments. Then there are other agreements and annexes that deal with the specific requirements of certain sectors or issues. Under the terms of the agreement, the majority of tariffs on the 201 products will be eliminated within three years, with reductions from 2016. By the end of October 2015, each of the participating members will submit to the other participants a draft timetable outlining how the terms of the agreement are to be respected. Participants will spend the next few months preparing and revising these schedules. The aim is to complete this technical work in time for the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in December. India`s experience with the ITA has been very discouraging, which has almost wiped out India`s IT industry. The real winner of this agreement was China, which increased its global market share from 2% to 14% between 2000 and 2011. These agreements are often referred to as WTO TRADE RULES, and the WTO is often described as rules-based, a rules-based system. But it`s important to remember that the rules are actually agreements that governments have negotiated.
The agreements for the two largest areas of goods and services have a common structure in three parts, although the details are sometimes very different. The table of contents of The Results of the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations: The Legal Texts is a huge list of about 60 agreements, annexes, decisions and arrangements. In fact, the agreements are divided into a simple structure with six main parties: a framework agreement (the agreement establishing the WTO); agreements for each of the three major trade areas covered by the WTO (goods, services and intellectual property); dispute resolution; and the review of governments` trade policies. Accession to the GPA is limited to WTO Members that have expressly signed or subsequently acceded to the GPA. WTO members are not required to join the GPA, but the United States strongly encourages all WTO members to participate in this important agreement. Several countries, including China, Russia and the Kyrgyz Republic, are currently negotiating their accession to the GPA. The WTO Agreements concern goods, services and intellectual property. They explain the principles of liberalization and the exceptions allowed.
These include commitments by individual countries to reduce tariffs and other barriers to trade and to open and keep services markets open. They establish dispute settlement procedures. They prescribe special treatment for developing countries. They oblige governments to make their trade policies transparent by informing the WTO of applicable laws and measures adopted and by reporting regularly to the Secretariat on countries` trade policies. After 17 rounds of negotiations, on Saturday 18 July 2015, negotiators were about to agree on a list of products for the expansion of the ITA and a draft declaration on how the agreement will be implemented. The basic structure of the WTO Agreements: how the six main areas fit into the WTO Framework Agreement, goods, services, intellectual property, disputes and trade policy reviews. India is a signatory to the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) (now also known as ITA-1), a plurilateral WTO agreement. There are currently a total of 75 member signatories, including 27 EU Member States, which account for around 97% of global trade in information technology (IT) products. India joined the ITA on 25 March 1997. Another group of agreements not included in the diagram is also important: the two plurilateral agreements that have not been signed by all members: civil aircraft and government procurement […].
