By Tareq Yousef AlShumaimry
World Trade Organization (WTO), is an intergovernmental organization that aims to coordinate and facilitate international trade in goods, services, and intellectual property among participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating Founded on 1 January 1995, it is the world’s largest international economic organization, with 164 member countries representing more than 98 percent of world trade and global gross domestic product. It is worth noting that the current non-member states are: Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Yemen, East Timor, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, the Vatican, and Palestine.
The WTO seeks to achieve the following objectives: establishing a prosperous and integrated economic world characterized by prosperity and peace; providing appropriate protection for the international market to accommodate different standards of living and development; creating an international competitive position based on economic efficiency in resource allocation; and achieving the full employment of the world’s resources.
