When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) entered into force on 1 January 1948, the intention was to incorporate it subsequently into a comprehensive world tradeorder and to set up an International Trade Organization (ITO) to enforce its rules. Because, however, the ITO was rejected by the US Congress, GATT remained a provisional solution for nearly fifty years. Not until the Uruguay Round, which lasted from 1986 to 1993, was the world trading system enlarged beyond mechandise trade to encompass other areas and GATT made into a definitive organization. The World Trade Organization (WTO), which started work on 1 January 1995, is the institutional superstructure for the reformed GATT and all other agreements concluded as part of the Uruguay Round.
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