从GATT到WTO.doc

Task 5 From GATT to WTO --- The Institutionalization of World Trade (Part One ) 从GATT到WTO ——世界贸易的制度化 (第一部分) Over the past few decades, a system of relatively open exchange, particularly in merchandise trade, has prevailed in the world under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Today, most economists acknowledge this trading system as one of the greatest contributors to the world’s rapid recovery from the desolation of the Second World War, and to the phenomenal growth in the world output thereafter. Through all of those years, however, GATT has served its contracting parties through a loose and informal structure, with all the inevitable problems that accompany a weak and ill-defined authority. With the passage of the Uruguay Round of trade talks, this trading system is poised to take on a new shape in a permanent institution known as the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although much skepticism and controversy have surrounded the birth of WTO, it is the hope of all free-traders that the new WTO will be able to amend what went amiss with GATT. 过去的几十年里，受益于关税及贸易总协定（GATT）的保护，整个世界，特别是货物贸易，都处于一个相对开放的贸易体系中。今天，大多数经济学家都认为，世界经济之所以从二战的萧条中迅速恢复以及世界出口总量猛涨，这一贸易体系做出了重大贡献。然而,这些年来,GATT是以一种松散、非正式的结构服务各缔约国,其权威较小且定义模糊，因此不可避免的产生许多问题。随着乌拉圭回合贸易谈判的成功,这一交易体系准备以一种全新的、永久性的机构形式呈现，即世界贸易组织(WTO)。对于成立WTO，尽管怀疑和争议不断,但所有自由贸易的倡议者都希望新成立的WTO能够弥补GATT的不足的。 A Brief History of Trade 贸易简史 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, economists began to make advances in interpreting why human beings had always engaged in economic exchange. The theory of comparative advantage posited that countries specialize in those goods and services that they produce more efficiently relative to other countries. When nations concentrate their production on commodities in which they have a comparative advantage, consumers as a whole benefit from lower prices and a greater range of consumption possibilities. Because each good is produced by the country that is best at producing it, scarce world r