Permanent Representative of Australia to the World Trade Organization the WTO is based with the Australian Permanent Mission and Consulate-General in Geneva. Prior to 1983, the role of Australia's representative on the GATT was filled by the Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations Office in Geneva. 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
World Trade Organization substantial portions of treaty language—sometime the majority of a chapter—is copied verbatim from a WTO agreement." The WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was established by a multilateral treaty of 23 countries in 1947 after World War II in the wake of other new multilateral institutions dedicated to international economic cooperation – such as the World Bank (founded 1944) and the International Monetary Fund (founded 1944 or 1945). A comparable international institution for trade, named the International Trade Organization never started as the U.S. and other signatories did not ratify the establishment treaty, and so GATT