The World Trade Organization was established on January 1, 1995, succeeding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that had governed international trade rules since 1948. It emerged from the Uruguay Round of negotiations, which lowered tariffs further, extended trade rules to services and intellectual property, and created a formal dispute settlement system. Membership grew to include developed and developing economies across all regions, making the WTO the primary multilateral framework for international trade rules. Its agreements directly shaped the customs and regulatory environment in which global logistics networks operate.
Relevance to Trade History
The WTO's rules and dispute mechanisms provided the legal framework underlying the rapid expansion of global trade volumes from the 1990s onward.
Read the full story in our article From GATT to the WTO: Building the Rules of Global Trade.
Source: World Trade Organization historical archive. See our Sources & Methodology page for how we select and verify references.