Most favoured nation in the context of "World Trade Organization"

⭐ In the context of the World Trade Organization, 'most-favoured-nation' status is considered…

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⭐ Core Definition: Most favoured nation

In international economic relations and international politics, most favoured nation (MFN) is a status or level of treatment accorded by one state to another in international trade. The term means the country which is the recipient of this treatment must nominally receive equal trade advantages as the "most favoured nation" by the country granting such treatment (trade advantages include low tariffs or high import quotas). In effect, a country that has been accorded MFN status may not be treated less advantageously than any other country with MFN status by the promising country.

There is a debate in legal circles whether MFN clauses in bilateral investment treaties include only substantive rules or also procedural protections. The members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agree to accord MFN status to each other. Exceptions allow for preferential treatment of developing countries, regional free trade areas and customs unions. Together with the principle of national treatment, MFN is one of the cornerstones of WTO trade law.

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👉 Most favoured nation in the context of World Trade Organization

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. Established on 1 January 1995, pursuant to the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, it succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1948. As the world's largest international economic organization, the WTO has 166 members, representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The WTO's primary functions are to provide a framework for negotiating trade agreements and to resolve trade disputes among its members. Its agreements, which are negotiated and signed by the majority of the world's trading nations and ratified in their parliaments, cover trade in goods, services, and intellectual property. The organization operates on the principle of non-discrimination—enshrined in the most-favoured-nation and national treatment provisions—but allows for exceptions for environmental protection, national security, and other objectives.

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Most favoured nation in the context of Preferential trading area

A preferential trade area (also preferential trade agreement, PTA) is a trading bloc that gives preferential access to certain products from the participating countries. This is done by reducing tariffs but not by abolishing them completely. It is the first stage of economic integration.

These tariff preferences have created numerous departures from the normal trade relations principle, namely that World Trade Organization (WTO) members should apply the same tariff to imports from other WTO members.

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Most favoured nation in the context of Romanian rural systematization program

The Romanian rural systematization program was a social engineering program undertaken by Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania primarily at the end of the 1980s. The legal framework for this program was established as early as 1974, but it only began in earnest in March 1988, after the Romanian authorities renounced most favoured nation status and the American human rights scrutiny which came with it. The declared aim of this program was to eliminate the differences between urban and rural, by the means of razing half of Romania's 13,000 villages and moving their residents into hundreds of new "agro-industrial centers" by 2000. The program gained notoriety in Europe, with protests from multiple countries – chiefly Hungary – as well as a Belgian-led initiative to save the Romanian villages by "adopting" them. Within a year, on 18 April 1989, the first batch of 23 new agro-industrial towns was completed. Only one new town was created between 1974 and 1988, as Ceaușescu focused his attention on other projects. Although cut short by the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, at least three more rural settlements in an advanced state of systematization were, ultimately, transformed into towns as well.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← World Trade Organization ← Preferential trading area ← Romanian rural systematization program ← WTO
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Sovereign state → International trade → Tariffs → Import quota → Bilateral Investment Treaty → World Trade Organization → Developing country → Free trade area → Customs union → National treatment → Trade law →