Lebanon Should Join The World Trade Organization

This article is a strong recommendation to the country of Lebanon to join its Middle Eastern neighbours by becoming a member of the World Trade Organization. The WTO is an organization that helps advise, regulate, and supervise countries around the world with their import and export trading. Officially recognized by the world and established at the beginning of 1995, the WTO has been the stage for all countries to come together and abide by specific ground rules. The WTO can be looked at as an open trade organization, a system that provides specific trade rules, a location to resolve any trade disputes peacefully, or a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements.

The WTO according to (Howard, 1996, p24) is an organization that supplies a location for members of the government to come together and discuss and sort out their trade problems with each other under one standard rule. These standard legal ground rules are basically contracts that bind governments to keep their initial trade policies and maintain business within the agreed limits. There are a number of ways of looking at the World Trade Organization. Essentially, the WTO is a place where governments try to sort out their trade problems they face with each other. Although the WTO negotiates and signs governments, the goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business, while allowing governments to meet social and environmental objectives. Currently, Lebanon is listed as an economically developing country. Prior to its civil war, Lebanon was considered a highly developed economical country with the potential to continue with its exponential growth. The civil war placed Lebanon into an economical catastrophe creating e...

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...n. At the moment, Lebanon needs to enhance its stance on two of the regulations, transparency, and safety. Lebanon has been involved in many money laundering cases for world renowned terrorist groups, which may cause some problems within the complete transparency act. Along with this, Lebanon’s operations and procedures may not be on par with that of the WTO’s safety regulations. Currently, Lebanon is using some chemicals for its agriculture that has been banned or reduced worldwide, along with this is Lebanon’s ability to control and contain an epidemic biological outbreak. It has shown in the past that it handles these situations very poorly, and in order to become a member of the WTO, Lebanon must strongly consider cooperating and enhancing these areas. It is Lebanon’s time to follow its Middle Eastern neighbours and join the WTO to reclaim its previous glory.