ABSTRACT
The overall objective of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947 was to restore orderly conditions in international commerce following the trade disorders of the 1930s and the subsequent hostilities. Of the more explicit purposes, the main one was to reduce tariffs, but another was to prevent governments from whittling away the benefits of tariff reductions through the use of nontariff methods of protection. Since the end of World War II, the GATT has provided the framework of principles and rules that have regulated the trade of the free enterprise world. Under its auspices, and despite some setbacks, a measure of trade liberalization has been achieved through successive multilateral negotiating rounds.
