Uruguay round

The Uruguay Round was the eighth round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), lasting 1986 to 1994 and included 123 nations as “contracting parties.” The talks and procedure came to a close in April 1994, when the Final Act of the Marrakesh Agreement was signed in Marrakesh, Morocco. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was established as a result of the round, with GATT maintaining an important element of the WTO accords.

Without a doubt, the Uruguay Round was the biggest trade negotiation ever, and it may have been the largest negotiation ever. It established laws and concepts that applied to all aspects of global commerce, from banking to consumer goods. Tariffs, non-tariff measures, tropical products as a priority area, natural resource-based products, textiles and clothing, agriculture, review of GATT articles, safeguards, Tokyo Round agreements and arrangements, subsidies and countervailing measures, dispute settlement, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, trade-related investment measures, and the Functioning of the GATT System were among the topics discussed during the round, which was the largest of any GATT round (FOGS).

Many reforms were made as a consequence of the Uruguay Round Negotiations in 1995 and the World Commerce Organization (WTO), which advocated for international trade between states on an equal basis. Trade in products, services, people (immigrant skilled labour), and capital was to be made more “impartial” so that the treatment of these components of trade originating in the host country and the importing country would be gradually reduced. There are still a lot of stumbling blocks in the way of developing a mutual agreement among diverse countries.

When it comes to vacations, there are differing perspectives across poor and industrialised countries. The standard IPR system could not be implemented, and there are country-specific intellectual property definitions, notably in new growing sectors such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, environmental research, microbiology, and so on.

The emerging economies are not ready to comply with the ‘liberal’ definition of intellectual property that they were forced to comply with in previous WTO negotiations in Geneva, Singapore, and Seattle, when the emerging economies were not as well organised as they are now with brics, ibsa, and other organisations.

As a result, these developing countries were readily persuaded to agree with whatever demands the industrialised countries made at the bargaining table. The ‘liberal’ notion of intellectual property allows well-established mncs from western countries in the throes of technological competence to patent even naturally developed objects like phenotype-expressing genes or microorganisms.

The unresolved ‘ever greening’ phrase in the ipr draught law, which tends to make their exclusive marketing rights of any product perpetual, adds to this. This phase mostly impacts terminally sick individuals, such as aids patients, who need a less expensive version of anti-retroviral treatments, such as generic versions, which are generally created by wealthy MNCs with a lot of corporate and government financing for newer technologies. Furthermore, this has exacerbated economic tensions between states split between the developing South and the industrialised North.

As a party to the World Intellectual Property Organization Convention, India has agreed to progressively transition from the current ‘process patent’ system to a ‘product patent’ regime. It started this procedure in the year 2000. Furthermore, India is registering its own patents abroad in order to minimise instances such as those involving basmati and turmeric.

A separate agency, the National Knowledge Commission, has been created under Sam Pitroda to compile all of India’s innovations and traditional knowledge. This would diminish instances of plagiarism for financial advantage by affluent countries with the financial strength to wage long legal battles.

India is likewise working to improve its legislative structure in the area of piracy by making positive changes to the Copyright Act of 1958.

From intellectual property brings significant economic rewards, there will be a nation-wide struggle for it in the future days, it is best that India takes these proactive actions so that predators do not have access to all that has been practised in India since time immemorial. Furthermore, by realigning its laws with the worldwide system, it tends to establish itself as a safe haven for multinational goods that are concerned about income loss due to copying.

The Uruguay Round major accomplishments included:

• A 38 percent reduction in trade-weighted average tariffs;
• Conclusion of the Agriculture Agreement, which placed agricultural trade under full GATT discipline for the first time;
• Adoption of the GATS (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in Services);
• Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement;
• TRIMS (Trade-Related Investment Measures) Agreement;
• The establishment of a consistent and predictable dispute resolution process (the Dispute Settlement Body, or DSB);
• The Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM) has been confirmed.
• The World Trade Organization (WTO), which oversees 15 multilateral and four plurilateral trade agreements;

In exchange for finally addressing agricultural protectionism on a larger scale and eliminating textile and apparel limits, the Uruguay Round significantly expanded the area of international trade regulations with agreements on intellectual property and trade in services.