This Global Ruling Is Just Not Cool

[pampango]

9. Never.

This is not about tariffs, unlike the first trade agreements.

The International Trade Organization of FDR and Truman was about much more than tariffs.

At its core, the countries of the world, rejected the idea that it was possible to maintain a firewall between trade, development, employment standards and domestic policy. Its most distinctive feature was the integration of an ambitious and successful program to reduce traditional trade barriers, with a wide-angled agreement that addressed investment, employment standards, development, business monopolies and the like. It pioneered the idea that trade disputes had to be settled by consultation and mediation rather than with legal clout. Further it established an institutional linkage between trade and labour standards that would effect a major advance in global governance. Finally it embedded the full employment obligation, along with "a commitment to free markets" as the cornerstone of multilateralism.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/csgr/papers/workingpapers/2000/wp6200.pdf