The Uruguay Round Negotiations and establishment of the WTO

The seeds of the Uruguay were sown in November 1982 at a Ministerial meeting of GATT members in Geneva. Though the meeting stalled on the issue of agriculture, the work program formed the basis of the Uruguay negotiation agenda. With four more years of exploring and clarifying issues and painstaking consensus-building, Ministers met again in September 1986, in Punta del Este, Uruguay. The negotiation was expected to be completed in four years. In December 1990, however, disagreement on the nature of commitments to future agricultural trade reform led to a decision to extend the round. For the following three years, the negotiations lurched continuously from impending failure to predictions of imminent success. Several deadlines came and went; farm trade was joined by services, market access, anti-dumping rules and the proposed creation of a new institution as the major points of conflict. It took until 15 December 1993 for every issue to be finally resolved. On 15 April 1994, the deal was signed by Ministers from most of the 125 participating governments at a meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco. The agreements of the Uruguay came into force on 1 January 1995.