The Director-General of the World Trade Organization is responsible for supervising the administrative functions of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Because World Trade Organizations' decisions are made by member states (through either a Ministerial Conference or through the General Council), the Director-General has little power over matters of policy - the role is primarily advisory and managerial. Director-General supervises the WTO secretariat of about 700 staff. WTO Director-General is appointed by WTO members for a term of four years.
The current Director-General (since September 2005) is Pascal Lamy of France.
Before the creation of the WTO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade had a series of Directors-General. Peter Sutherland was the last DG of GATT and the first of the WTO.
Read more about Director-General Of The World Trade Organization: Past Directors-General
Famous quotes containing the words world, trade and/or organization:
“When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The profession of magician, is one of the most perilous and arduous specialisations of the imagination. On the one hand there is the hostility of God and the police to be guarded against; on the other it is as difficult as music, as deep as poetry, as ingenious as stage-craft, as nervous as the manufacture of high explosives, and as delicate as the trade in narcotics.”
—William Bolitho (1890–1930)
“The only thing that’s been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.”
—Joan Baez (b. 1941)