Director-General of the World Trade Organization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Director-General of the World Trade Organization is responsible for supervising the administrative functions of the WTO. Because World Trade Organizations' decisions are made by member states (through either a Ministerial Conference or through the General Council), the Director-General has little power over matters of policy - the role is primarily advisory and managerial. Director-General supervises the WTO secretariat of about 700 staff. WTO Director-General is appointed by WTO members for term of four years.

The current Director-General (since September 2005) is Pascal Lamy of France.

[edit] Past Directors-General

This is a list of former holders of the office of director-general. The post was created in 1995, although the earlier office of Executive Secretary is often seen as a direct equivalent.

	Name	Took office	Left office	Country
1	Eric Wyndham White	23 March 1965	6 May 1968	United Kingdom
2	Olivier Long	6 May 1968	1 October 1980	Switzerland
3	Arthur Dunkel	1 October 1980	1 July 1993	Switzerland
4	Peter Sutherland	1 July 1993	1 May 1995	Ireland
5	Renato Ruggiero	1 May 1995	1 September 1999	Italy
6	Mike Moore	1 September 1999	1 September 2002	New Zealand
7	Supachai Panitchpakdi	1 September 2002	1 September 2005	Thailand
8	Pascal Lamy	1 September 2005	---	France