The 1994 Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization was developed during
the Uruguay Round, a series of trade negotiations among 125 countries spanning seven
and a half years. The Agreement specifies the purpose of the WTO, its functions,
structure, and legal status, and provides for a Secretariat. The preamble text states that
parties to the Agreement recognize that, "their relations in the field of trade and economic
endeavor should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living, ensuring full
employment and a large and steadily ' growing volume of real income and effective
demand, and expanding the production of and trade in goods and services, while allowing
for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of
sustainable development, seeking both to protect and preserve the envirorunent and to
enhance the means for doing so in a manner consistent with their respective needs and
concems at different levels of economic developmen
