Signed | 12 April 1979 (Geneva) 2 February 1987 (amendment) 15 April 1994 (Marrakesh) 30 March 2012 (amendment) |
---|---|
Location | Geneva (1979), Marrakesh (1996) |
Effective | 1 January 1981 (Geneva) 14 February 1988 (amendment) 1 January 1996 (Marrakesh) 6 April 2014 (amendment) |
Parties | 12 (Geneva, as amended) 21 (Marrakesh, as amended) |
Depositary | Director-General of the World Trade Organization |
Languages | English, French and Spanish |
The Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) is a plurilateral agreement under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which regulates the procurement of goods and services by the public authorities of the parties to the agreement, based on the principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination.
The agreement was originally established in 1979 as the Tokyo Round Code on Government Procurement, [1] which entered into force in 1981 under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. [2] It was then renegotiated in parallel with the Uruguay Round in 1994, and this version entered into force on 1 January 1996.
The text adopted in 1996 anticipated that there would be subsequent improvements. An understanding on the expected revisions was reached in December 2006, and the agreement was subsequently revised on 30 March 2012. The revised GPA came into effect on 6 July 2014 and has applied since 1 January 2021 to all members.
The following WTO Members are parties to the amended 1994 agreement: [3]
Parties | Accession date |
---|---|
Canada | 1 January 1996 |
The European Union with respect to [Note 1] Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden | 1 January 1996 |
Israel | 1 January 1996 |
Japan | 1 January 1996 |
Norway | 1 January 1996 |
Switzerland | 1 January 1996 |
United States | 1 January 1996 |
The Netherlands with respect to Aruba | 25 October 1996 |
South Korea | 1 January 1997 |
Hong Kong SAR | 19 June 1997 |
Liechtenstein | 18 September 1997 |
Singapore | 20 October 1997 |
Iceland | 28 April 2001 |
The European Union with respect to Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia | 1 May 2004 |
The European Union with respect to Bulgaria and Romania | 1 January 2007 |
Chinese Taipei [Note 2] | 15 July 2009 |
Armenia | 15 September 2011 |
The European Union with respect to Croatia | 1 July 2013 |
Montenegro | 15 July 2015 |
New Zealand | 12 August 2015 |
Ukraine | 18 May 2016 |
Moldova | 14 June 2016 |
Australia | 5 May 2019 |
United Kingdom [Note 1] | 1 January 2021 |
North Macedonia | 30 October 2023 [4] |
Notes
The following WTO Members have obtained observer status with respect to the GPA, with those marked with an asterisk (*) negotiating accession: Afghanistan, Albania*, Argentina, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil*, Cameroon, Chile, China*, Colombia, Costa Rica*, [5] Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Georgia*, India, Indonesia, Jordan*, Kazakhstan*, Kyrgyz Republic*, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman*, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Russia*, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan*, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. [3]
Procuring entities bound by the Agreement vary by member state. Each member state has its own Appendix 1 which forms an integral part of the Agreement detailing how the agreement applies to their national procurement activities. Each Appendix 1 has seven annexes:
The Review Body on Bid Challenges is a body set up in 1998 by party states in order to allow suppliers to challenge irregular government tenders. [7] The Review Body is independent and endeavors to process each case in an expeditious manner. The Review Body is also empowered to recommend Rapid Interim Measures (RIMs), which can be recommended within days where a Review Body finds a prima facie case for a bid challenge. [7]
The UK applied the agreement as part of its EU membership from 1 January 1996. After the UK left the EU on 1 February 2020, the agreement remained in force during the transition period until 1 January 2021. Discussions about continued UK membership were initiated on 27 June 2018, [8] and in October 2020, the UK was invited to become a party in its own right at the end of the transition phase. [9]
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that govern international trade in cooperation with the United Nations System. The WTO is the world's largest international economic organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of global trade and global GDP.
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which entered into force in January 1995 as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. The treaty was created to extend the multilateral trading system to service sector, in the same way the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provides such a system for merchandise trade.
The Buy American Act passed in 1933 by the Congress and signed by President Hoover on his last full day in office, required the United States government to prefer U.S.-made products in its purchases. Other pieces of federal legislation extend similar requirements to third-party purchases that utilize federal funds, such as highway and transit programs.
The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), spanning from 1986 to 1993 and embracing 123 countries as "contracting parties". The Round led to the creation of the World Trade Organization, with GATT remaining as an integral part of the WTO agreements. The broad mandate of the Round had been to extend GATT trade rules to areas previously exempted as too difficult to liberalize and increasingly important new areas previously not included. The Round came into effect in 1995 with deadlines ending in 2000 under the administrative direction of the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO).
A free trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is an agreement according to international law to form a free-trade area between the cooperating states. There are two types of trade agreements: bilateral and multilateral. Bilateral trade agreements occur when two countries agree to loosen trade restrictions between the two of them, generally to expand business opportunities. Multilateral trade agreements are agreements among three or more countries, and are the most difficult to negotiate and agree.
A Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) is a trade pact that establishes a framework for expanding trade and resolving outstanding disputes between countries.
In international trade, market access refers to a company's ability to enter a foreign market by selling its goods and services in another country. Market access is not the same as free trade, because market access is normally subject to conditions or requirements, whereas under ideal free trade conditions goods and services can circulate across borders without any barriers to trade. Expanding market access is therefore often a more achievable goal of trade negotiations than achieving free trade.
The Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, also known as the SPS Agreement or just SPS, is an international treaty of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was negotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and entered into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995. Broadly, the sanitary and phytosanitary ("SPS") measures covered by the agreement are those aimed at the protection of human, animal or plant life or health from certain risks.
The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, commonly referred to as the TBT Agreement, is an international treaty administered by the World Trade Organization. It was last renegotiated during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, with its present form entering into force with the establishment of the WTO at the beginning of 1995, binding on all WTO members.
Government procurement or public procurement is the procurement of goods, services and works on behalf of a public authority, such as a government agency. Amounting to 12 percent of global GDP in 2018, government procurement accounts for a substantial part of the global economy.
The original member states of theWorld Trade Organization are the parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) after ratifying the Uruguay Round Agreements, and the European Communities. They obtained this status at the entry into force on 1 January 1995 or upon their date of ratification. All other members have joined the organization as a result of negotiation, and membership consists of a balance of rights and obligations. The process of becoming a World Trade Organization (WTO) member is unique to each applicant country, and the terms of accession are dependent upon the country's stage of economic development and the current trade regime.
This is a timeline of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Rules of origin are the rules to attribute a country of origin to a product in order to determine its "economic nationality". The need to establish rules of origin stems from the fact that the implementation of trade policy measures, such as tariffs, quotas, trade remedies, in various cases, depends on the country of origin of the product at hand.
The Ministerial Conference is the top decision making body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). There have been twelve ministerial conferences from 1996 to 2022, usually every two years.
Non-violation nullification of benefits (NVNB) claims are a species of dispute settlement in the World Trade Organization arising under World Trade Organization multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. NVNB claims are controversial in that they are widely perceived to promote the social vices of unpredictability and uncertainty in international trade law. Other commentators have described NVNB claims as potentially inserting corporate competition policy into the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU).
Customs valuation is the process whereby customs authorities assign a monetary value to a good or service for the purposes of import or export. Generally, authorities engage in this process as a means of protecting tariff concessions, collecting revenue for the governing authority, implementing trade policy, and protecting public health and safety. Customs duties, and the need for customs valuation, have existed for thousands of years among different cultures, with evidence of their use in the Roman Empire, the Han dynasty and the Indian sub-continent. The first recorded customs tariff was from 136 in Palmyra, an oasis city in the Syrian desert. Beginning near the end of the 20th century, the procedures used throughout most of the world for customs valuation were codified in the Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The WTO deals with regulation of trade between participating countries by providing a framework for negotiating trade agreements and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements, which is signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments. Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).
The EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is a free trade agreement signed on 30 December 2020, between the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the United Kingdom (UK). It provisionally applied from 1 January 2021, when the Brexit transition period ended, before formally entering into force on 1 May 2021, after the ratification processes on both sides were completed: the UK Parliament ratified on 30 December 2020; the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union ratified in late April 2021.
The United Kingdom–Crown Dependencies Customs Union or customs arrangements with the Crown Dependencies is a customs union that covers the British Islands.