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 been increasing calls for action on the labour standards issue, and requests for a "human face on the world economy". The United Nations is among those bodies which have criticised the current system, and have called for a shift to a human rights oriented approach to trade, with steps to be taken "to ensure that human rights principles and obligations are fully integrated in future negotiations in the World Trade Organization", as the "primacy of human rights law over all other regimes of international law is a basic and fundamental principle that should not be departed from". It is clear