Foreword by WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo

When the World Trade Organization was launched 20 years ago it represented more than a reform of the old GATT system. The WTO was seen as the key pillar of a new kind of global economic order – open, inclusive, cooperative – that was taking shape in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Countries that were largely closed to the world economy for almost half a century were turning to open markets and economic integration. Many developing countries, for decades left behind by the more industrialized, were beginning a rapid economic catch up. New transport, communications, and information technologies were weaving economies more tightly together, reshaping international relations in the process. If the GATT was the product of a divided world, the WTO offered the promise of a more unified one.