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WTO Agreement on international trade in services. It applies to measures of WTO members that affect trade in services. The services supplied "in the exercise of governmental authority", which means services supplied neither on a commercial basis nor in competition with other service suppliers. Trade in services can take place in four different modes of supply, which are al covered by GATS:

1. Cross-border supply (only the service itself crosses the national borders);

2. Consumption abroad (consumers or goods travel to the country where the service is supplied;

3. Commercial presence in the consuming country (establishment of branch office or agency by foreign service supplier);

4. Presence of natural persons (admission of foreign nationals to another country to provide services).

The agreement includes:

• the most-favoured nation principle. However, members can make exceptions for this principle under certain conditions.

• the transparency principle. This applies to GATS: all members have to publish all relevant laws and regulation and notify all changes in these laws and regulations that affect operation of the Agreement.

• National treatment. This only applies where countries have made a specific commitment. Exceptions are allowed.

• Non-discrimination in recognition of qualifications. When two (or more) governments have agreements recognising each other’s qualifications, other members must also be given a chance to negotiate comparable pacts.

• No restriction on money transfers. Once a government has made a commitment to open a service sector to foreign competition, it must not normally restrict money being transferred out of the country as payment for services supplied in that sector.

• Specific commitments of individual countries. Individual countries’ commitments to open markets in specific sectors are the outcome of negotiations.

See the full text of General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the WTO web-site.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) covers international trade in goods. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, originally signed by 23 nations in 1947, was an informal multilateral agreement covering international trade activities among states. A series of rounds, e.g. the Kennedy Round, the Tokyo Round, the Uruguay Round, have progressively moved nations to freer trade through removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers. The Uruguay Round of the GATT created the World Trade Organisation as an international body in 1995 to administer the GATT.

The workings of the GATT agreement are the responsibility of the Council for Trade in Goods (Goods Council) which is made up of representatives from all WTO member countries. The Goods Council has 11 committees dealing with specific subjects (such as agriculture, market access, subsidies, anti-dumping measures and so on). Again, these committees consist of all member countries. Also reporting to the Goods Council are the Textiles Monitoring Body, a working party on state trading enterprises, and the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) Committee.

The full text of GATT 1994 is available to download from the WTO website as a PDF

The full text of GATT 1994 (GATT after the Uruguay Round), is also available as PDF

Under the Generalised System of Preferences, developed countries offer non-reciprocal preferential treatment (such as zero or low duties on imports) to products originating in developing countries. Preference-giving countries unilaterally determine which countries and which products are included in their schemes. At present, there are 16 different schemes of preferences in operation in 28 developed countries, including the 15 member States of the European Union.

Handbooks on the GSP schemes of some developed countries can be found at the UNCTAD web-site

The increasing world-wide integration of markets for goods, services and capital.

Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP)

Under the Global System of Trade Preferences, developing countries that are members of the Group of 77, exchange trade concessions among themselves. UNCTAD provides technical assistance to beneficiaries and conducts analyses of the various schemes. It stands as a concrete commitment to South-South co-operation, and to the principle of economic co-operation among developing countries.

A growing awareness of the trade-restrictive effects of discriminatory procurement policies and of the desirability of fulfilling these gaps in the trading system resulted in a first effort to bring government procurement under internationally agreed trade rules in the Tokyo Round of Trade Negotiations. The first Agreement on Government Procurement was signed in 1979. Over the years, this Agreement has been amended. In 1994 a new Government Procurement Agreement was signed, which entered into force in 1996. The GPA is a plurilateral agreement, signifying that not all WTO members have signed the Agreement.

The Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) establishes an agreed framework of rights and obligations among its Parties with respect to their national laws, regulations, procedures and practices in the area of government procurement. The cornerstone of the rules in the Agreement is non-discrimination. In order to ensure that the basic principle of non-discrimination is followed and that access to procurement is available to foreign products, services and suppliers, the Agreement lays heavy emphasis on procedures for providing transparency of laws, regulations, procedures and practices regarding government procurement.

Go to the WTO website for the full text of the Government Procurement Agreement, see:

The WTO Agreement on Agriculture sets out a number of general and measure-specific criteria which, when met, allow measures to be placed in the Green Box. These measures are exempt from reduction commitments and, indeed, can even be increased without any financial limitation under the WTO. The general criteria are that the measures must have no, or at most minimal, trade-distorting effects or effects on production. They must be provided through a publicly-funded government programme (including government revenue foregone) not involving transfers from consumers and must not have the effect of providing price support to producers.

The Green Box covers many government service programmes including general services provided by governments, public stockholding programmes for food security purposes and domestic food aid -as long as the general criteria and some other measure-specific criteria are met by each measure concerned. The Green Box also provides for the use of direct payments to producers which are not linked to production decisions, i.e. although the farmer receives a payment from the government, this payment does not influence the type or volume of agricultural production ("decoupling").

A group of the world's leading powers -- United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan -- that meets regularly to discuss common policy issues. The Group of Seven (G-7) major industrial countries held their first annual economic summit meeting of heads of state or government in 1975.

The Group of 15 (G-15), a group of 17 developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America, was established as a Summit-Level Group of Developing Countries in September 1989. The G-15 was established to

• foster greater and mutually beneficial co-operation among developing countries in the areas of investment, trade and technology.

• provide input for other international groups, such as the World Trade Organisation and the Group of Seven rich industrialised nations.

The G15 is comprised of Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

The Group of 77 (G-77) was established on 15 June 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. In February 2001, the Group of 77 contained 133 members.

The Group of 77 aims to:

• provide the means for the developing world to articulate and promote its collective economic interests;

• enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues in the United Nations system;

• promote economic and technical co-operation among developing countries.

For more information go to the G77 website

The Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, more commonly known as the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), was founded in 1981, when Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates signed the new organisation's constitution.

The Charter of the GCC lists the objectives of the regional organisation:

• To effect co-ordination, integration and interconnection between the member states in all fields in order to achieve unity between them;

• To strengthen relations, links and scopes of co-operation prevailing between their peoples in various fields;

• To formulate similar regulations in various fields, e.g. economic and financial affairs, agriculture etc.;

• To stimulate scientific and technological progress in various fields and to establish scientific research centres and implement common projects;

• To encourage co-operation by the private sector.

In 1982 the Unified Economic Agreement was ratified. The aims of this agreement include free trade in all agricultural, animal, industrial and natural resource products of national origins within the region. In September 1998 member states accepted draft unified customs laws. In November 1999 the heads of state decided to establish a GCC Customs Union that will come into effect in March 2005.

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In September 1996, the Interim and Development Committees of the IMF and the World Bank endorsed a program jointly proposed by the two institutions to address this situation. The Initiative for the "Heavily Indebted Poor Countries" (HIPC Initiative) is designed to provide exceptional assistance to eligible countries following sound economic policies to help them reduce their external debt burden to sustainable levels. That is, to levels that will enable them to service their debt through export earnings, aid, and capital inflows.

The Initiative is a comprehensive, integrated, and co-ordinated approach to debt reduction that requires the participation of all creditors—bilateral, multilateral, and commercial. Central to the Initiative is the country's continued effort toward macroeconomic adjustment and structural and social policy reforms.

Following a comprehensive review of the HIPC Initiative, a number of modifications to the Initiative were approved in September 1999 to provide faster, deeper and broader debt relief and strengthen the links between debt relief, poverty reduction and social policies.

For more information go to the Debt Initiative for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) fact sheet on the IMF website

The notion that people possess rights by virtue of being human beings, not because they are citizens of a particular state. The United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicise the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."

Go to the UN website for the full text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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An economic development model where the state intervenes in the economy in a way that decreases the country's dependence on imported goods. Usually involves forms of protection for locally produced goods against imported ones.

Protection by tariffs or other means of a newly established domestic industry that is thought to be less productive than foreign producers. Assuming that local producers will become more productive with experience and that capital-market imperfections interfere with their ability to cover their short-run losses, a second-best argument can be made for protection.

Inflation

A persistent rise in the level of prices, reflecting a decrease in purchasing power of a currency.

Intellectual Property Rights

Monopoly protection for creative works (intellectual property) such as writing (copyright), inventions (patents), processes (trade secrets) and identifiers (trademarks).

The Integrated Framework (IF) for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries is a concrete outcome of the WTO Plan of Action for the Least Developed Countries, agreed at the Ministerial Conference of WTO in December 1996. Six international agencies agreed to:

• develop and apply it on a case-by-case basis to meet the needs identified by individual LDCs;

• to assist them to enhance their trade opportunities, to respond to market demands; and

• to better integrate them into the multilateral trading system.

These agencies are the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Least developed countries can invite other multilateral and bilateral development partners to participate in the Integrated Framework process.

The approach of the Integrated Framework is that it is demand-driven, ownership-oriented and resource efficient.

For more information, see the Integrated Framework website:

Refers to an organisation between different governments.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is a member of the World Bank Group and thus shares the primary objective of all Bank Group institutions to improve the quality of the lives of people in its developing member countries.

The IFC is the largest multilateral source of loan and equity financing for private sector projects in the developing world. IFC finances and provides advice for private sector ventures and projects in developing countries in partnership with private investors and, through its advisory work, helps governments create conditions that stimulate the flow of both domestic and foreign private savings and investment. Its particular focus is to promote economic development by encouraging the growth of productive enterprise and efficient capital markets in its member countries. IFC participates in an investment only when it can make a special contribution that complements the role of market operators. It also plays a catalytic role, stimulating and mobilising private investment in the developing world by demonstrating that investments there can be profitable.

For more information, see the IFC web-site

International Financial Institutions (IFIs)

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Regional Development Banks.

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)

IBRD, which is a member of the World Bank, provides loans and development assistance to middle-income countries and creditworthy poorer countries. It does not provide grants.

Developing countries borrow from the Bank because they need capital, technical assistance, and policy advice. The IBRD provides loans for developing countries that are able to pay near-market interest rates. The money for these loans comes from investors around the world. These investors buy bonds issued by the World Bank.

Voting power is linked to members' capital subscriptions, which in turn are based on each country's relative economic strength. The IBRD is not a profit-maximising organisation but has earned a net income every year since 1948.

For more information on go to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) section of the World Bank website

International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)

The international centre for the Settlement of investment Disputes (ICSID) is one of the five institutions that comprise the World Bank Group. ICSID provides facilities for the settlement - by conciliation or arbitration - of investment disputes between foreign investors and their host countries. ICSID was created in 1966 to:

• Facilitate the settlement of investment disputes between governments and foreign investors so as to help to promote increased flows of international investment.

• Relieve the President and the staff of the World Bank of the burden of becoming involved in such disputes.

ICSID provides facilities for the conciliation and arbitration of disputes between member countries and investors who qualify as nationals of other member countries. Recourse to ICSID conciliation and arbitration is entirely voluntary. However, once the parties have consented to arbitration under the ICSID Convention, neither can unilaterally withdraw its consent.

For more information go to the international centre for the Settlement of investment Disputes (ICSID) section of the World Bank website

The International Development Association (IDA) is one of the five institutions that comprise the World Bank. Its assistance is focused on the poorest countries --those that cannot afford to borrow from IBRD, with a per capita income of less than $885--to which it provides interest-free loans, technical assistance and policy advice. IDA depends on contributions from its wealthier member countries, including some developing countries, for most of its financial resources.

The mission of IDA is to support efficient and effective programs to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life in its poorest member countries. IDA helps build the human capital, policies, institutions, and physical infrastructure needed to bring about equitable and sustainable growth.

For more information go to the International Development Association section of the World Bank website

The International labour organisation (ILO) is an agency of the United Nations and was founded in 1919. It seeks to promote of social justice and internationally recognised human and labour rights.

The ILO carries out the following activities:

• It formulates international labour standards in the form of Conventions and Recommendations setting minimum standards of basic labour rights: freedom of association, the right to organise, collective bargaining, abolition of forced labour, equality of opportunity and treatment, and other standards regulating conditions across the entire spectrum of work related issues.

• It provides technical assistance primarily in the fields of vocational training and vocational rehabilitation; employment policy; labour administration; labour law and industrial relations; working conditions; management development; co-operatives; social security; labour statistics and occupational safety and health.

• It promotes the development of independent employers' and workers' organisations and provides training and advisory services to those organisations.

Within the UN system, the ILO has a unique tripartite structure with workers and employers participating as equal partners with governments in the work of its governing organs.

For more information, see the ILO website

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was established in 1946, with the aim to:

• to promote international monetary co-operation, exchange stability, and orderly exchange arrangements;

• to foster economic growth and high levels of employment; and

• to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment.

Its purposes have remained unchanged but its operations, which involve surveillance, financial assistance, and technical assistance, have developed to meet the changing needs of its member countries in an evolving world economy.

For more information see the International Monetary Fund website

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The least developed countries are the poorest countries in the world. The UN definition of "least developed countries is commonly accepted. The General Assembly of the United Nations officially designates countries as "least developed", on the basis of a number of agreed criteria. The criteria underlying the current list of LDCs are:

• a low income, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita;

• weak human resources, as measured by a composite index (Augmented Physical Quality of Life Index) based on indicators of life expectancy at birth, per capita calorie intake, combined primary and secondary school enrolment, and adult literacy;

• a low level of economic diversification, as measured by a composite index (Economic Diversification Index) based on the share of manufacturing in GDP, the share of the labour force in industry, annual per capita commercial energy consumption, and UNCTAD's merchandise export concentration index.

In January 2001, 48 countries were considered to be "least developed".

For more information, see the UN web-site on least developed countries:

Refers to any country whose per capita income is low by world standards. There is no commonly accepted definition for this term. Also referred to as "developing country".

The agreements between the EU and the ACP Group, which were signed for the first time in 1975 and ended in 1999. The main characteristics these Agreements are the partnership principle, the contractual nature of the relationship, and the combination of aid, trade and political aspects, together with its long-term perspective (5 to 10 years). These principles together are sometime referred to as the Lomé Convention. The Lomé Agreements were replaced by the Cotonou Agreement in June 2000.