The World Trade Organization at Thirty

Clark Packard and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon

April marks the thirtieth anniversary of the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement and the culmination of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, which converted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO).[1] Today, the WTO has 164 members (it will expand to 166 as Comoros and Timor‐​Leste were approved for membership at the thirteenth Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi in February), which encompasses 98 percent of global trade.