UNDERSTANDING THE WTO:
THE AGREEMENTS
Trade policy reviews: ensuring transparency
Individuals and companies involved in trade have to know as much as possible about the conditions of trade. It is therefore fundamentally important that regulations and policies are transparent. In the WTO, this is achieved in two ways: governments have to inform the WTO and fellow-members of specific measures, policies or laws through regular ?notifications?; and the WTO conducts regular reviews of individual countries? trade policies
? the trade policy reviews. These reviews are part of the Uruguay Round agreement, but they began several years before the round ended
? they were an early result of the negotiations. Participants agreed to set up the reviews at the December 1988 ministerial meeting that was intended to be the midway assessment of the Uruguay Round. The first review took place the following year. Initially they operated under GATT and, like GATT, they focused on goods trade. With the creation of the WTO in 1995, their scope was extended, like the WTO, to include services and intellectual property.