International Trade Organization

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The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 proposed the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO) to establish rules and regulations for trade between countries. The ITO would have complemented the other two Bretton Woods Institutions: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

The ITO charter was agreed at the UN Conference on Trade and Employment in Havana in March 1948, but was blocked by the U.S. Senate. As a result, the ITO never came into existence. It has been suggested that the failure may have resulted from fears within the American business community that the International Trade Organization could be used to regulate European cartels rather than to break them up. [1]

Only one element of the ITO survived: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under GATT before the eighth round - the Uruguay Round - concluded in 1995 with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as the GATT's replacement. The GATT principles and agreements were adopted by the WTO, which was charged with administering and extending them.