The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created in 1947 and operated almost five decades on a provisional basis until 1995 when the WTO was established. Its goal is to improve the welfare of peoples of its member countries, specifically by lowering trade barriers and providing a platform for the negotiation of trade. The organization deals with the rules of trade between nations at a global or near global level; it is responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements and charged with policing Member Countries' adherence to all WTO agreements. In 2007 there were 150 Member States.

• 1. Making trade multilateralism work for all: the role of WTO accessions Alexei Kireyev and Chiedu Osakwe; Part I. WTO Accessions And The New Trade Multilateralism: 2. The WTO and the changing state of the global economy Alexei Kireyev; 3. The art and science of negotiation: de-politicizing and technicizing negotiations Micheline Calmy-Rey and Svenja Rauch; 4. The accession of Kazakhstan: dealing with complexity Alexei Kireyev, Chiedu Osakwe and Anna Varyanik; 5. Helping businesses navigate WTO accession Arancha González; 6. WTO rules, accession protocols and mega-regionals – complementarity and governance in the rules-based global economy Maša Lekić and Chiedu Osakwe; 7. Promoting good governance: from encouraging a principle to taking concrete action – examples from WTO accession protocols and the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Juneyoung Lee, Nora Neufeld and Anna Varyanik; 8. Transforming accessions data into knowledge Hubert Escaith, Chiedu Osakwe, Vicky Chemutai and Ying Yan; Part II. Negotiators' Perspectives On The WTO Accession Process: 9. Accession of Liberia: an agenda for transformation Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Axel Addy; 10. Afghanistan's accession: challenged by conflict Humayoon Rasaw; 11. The WTO accession of Seychelles: lessons from a small island economy Pierre Laporte, Charles Morin and Cillia Mangroo; 12. WTO accession negotiations from a negotiator's perspective Atsuyuki Oike; Part III. Accessions Acquis: Thematic Perspectives and Implementation Challenges: 13. How post-TRIPS negotiations reframe the 'trade-related aspects' of intellectual property after TRIPS: the lessons of WTO accessions Antony Taubman; 14. Competition policy in WTO accessions: filling in the blanks in the international trading system Robert D. Anderson, Anna Caroline Müller and Nivedita Sen; 15. Geographical indications in the accessions landscape Tatiana Yanguas Acosta; 16. WTO accession commitments on agriculture: lessons for WTO rule-making Diwakar Dixit; 17. The WTO-plus obligations: dual class or a strengthened system? Nannan Gao and Fangying Zheng; 18. Accession protocols and the private sector Josefita Pardo de León and Mariam Soumaré; 19. Post-accession support platform Maika Oshikawa; 20. Conclusion – trade multilateralism: enhancing flexibility, preserving the momentum Alexei Kireyev and Chiedu Osakwe.