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... formed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference. There was an attempt to found an International Trade Organization (ITO), to oversee "new liberal trade rules applied to tariffs, subsidies, and other protectionist bodies" (Balaam & Veseth). In 1948 GATT was established to perform these functions. The spirit of the WTO is the agreements, which were negotiated during the Uruguay Round. The agreements were signed by 141 nations and they provide the "legal ground rules" for international trade (NCF, 2003). The WTO system is only available to countries which: (a) are contracting parties to the GATT, (b) agree to adhere to all of the Uruguay Round agreements, and (c) submit schedules of market access commitments for industrial goods, agricultural goods, and services (PACIFIC, 1997). To understand how the WTO differs from GATT the main function of GATT has to be known: to bring down barriers and to ensure fair trade between nations. ...