Page 397 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

surges), during the diffraction process, the rather wide turn it has to take
spared the south Kerala coast. On the other hand, deepening the Sethu Canal
might provide a more direct route for the tsunami and this could impact south
Kerala.” Putting a virtual stop to the controversial Sethusamudram canal

project, the Supreme Court on 21 April 2010 decided to wait for a “full and
comprehensive” Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) on the feasibility of

an alternative route through Dhanushkodi instead of Ram Sethu.

MAJOR WORLD ORGANISATIONS

WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO)

As the name suggests, it is an international organisation dealing with the rules

of trade between nations. It constitutes the permanent institutional framework
for the multilateral trading system. WTO came into being on 1 January 1995,
and at present consists of 150 member countries. Its permanent HQ is in

Geneva. Before its formation, the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT) had been providing the rules for the global trading system since

1948.

The largest GATT round of negotiations, which lasted from 1986 to 1994
led to the WTO’s creation. During the Uruguay round, over 60 developing
countries, became a part of the WTO-implemented trade liberalisation

programme. Later summits were held at the following venues:

The first summit was held at Singapore in 1996

The second summit was held at Cancun in 2003

The last summit at ministerial level was held at Hong Kong in 2005

The WTO had a very turbulent start right from its inception where the trade
interests of member countries were found conflicting. The disagreement was

especially between the developed and developing countries as
agriculturists/farmers of respective countries felt they would be severely
harmed by WTO’s agreements.