Permanent Representative of Australia to the World Trade Organization Permanent Representative of Australia to the World Trade Organization The Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Australia to the World Trade Organization is an officer of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the head of the Permanent Mission of the Commonwealth of Australia to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The position has the rank and status of an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and continues Australia's representation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT; 1948–1995), as a charter member joining the WTO to replace the GATT on 1 January 1995. The Permanent Mission to
Labour standards in the World Trade Organization trade through these sections. One of the reasons for this is that even when trade restrictive measures are successfully applied to a state, GATT Article 1, the principle of most favoured nation treatment, comes into play. This prescribes in essence, that any country which treats a state in a particular way then has to grant the same treatment to all other states. In regards to sanctions this means that if trade sanctions are applied to one country for a certain human rights abuse, they must then be applied to all countries who abuse the same right. This can have massive