Suggested Charter

for an International Organization of the United Nations

ESTABLISHMENT

The International Trade Organization of the United Nations is. hereby established and shall operate in accordance with the following provisions:

CHAPTER I. PURPOSES

Article 1. General Purposes of the Organization

The purposes of the Organization shall be:

1. To promote the solution of problems in the field of international. commercial policies and relations through consultation and collaboration among Members.

2. To enable Members to avoid recourse to measures destructive of world commerce by providing, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis, expanding opportunities for their trade and economic development.

3. To encourage and assist the industrial and general economic development of Member countries, particularly of those still in the early stages of industrial development.

4. In general, to promote national and international action for the expansion of the production, exchange and consumption of goods, for the reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers, and for the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce; thus contributing to an expanding world economy, to the establishment and maintenance in all countries of high levels of employment and real income, and to the creation of economic conditions conducive to the maintenance of world peace.

5. To provide a centralized agency for the coordination of the work of Members to the above ends.

CHAPTER II. MEMBERSHIP

Article 2. Membership

1. The original Members of the Organization shall be those coun-tries represented at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment which accept the provisions of this Charter by December

31, 194_-, or, in the event that this Charter has not entered into force by that date, the countries which have agreed to bring this Charter into force pursuant to the proviso to paragraph 3 of Article 78.

2. Membership in the Organization shall be open to such other countries as accept the provisions of this Charter, subject to the approval of the Conference on recommendation of the Executive Board. 3. The Conference shall establish procedures that will open a membership in the Organization to the United Nations on behalf of the trust territories for which the United Nations is the administering authority.

CHAPTER III. EMPLOYMENT PROVISIONS

Article 3. Relation of Employment to Purposes of Organization

The Members recognize that the attainment and maintenance of useful employment opportunities for those able, willing, and seeking to work are essential to the full realization of the purposes of the. Organization. They also recognize that domestic programs to maintain or expand employment should be consistent with these purposes.

Article 4. General Undertaking to Promote Full Employment

Each Member shall take action designed to achieve and maintain full employment within its own jurisdiction through measures appropriate to its political and economic institutions.

Article 5. Avoidance of Certain Employment Measures

In seeking to maintain or expand employment, no Member shall adopt measures which would have the effect of creating unemployment in other countries or which are incompatible with undertakings designed to promote an expanding volume of international trade and investment.

Article 6. Consultation and Exchange of Information on Matters Relating to Employment

The Members agree that they will: (1) make arrangements for the collection, analysis, and exchange of information on employment problems, trends, and policies and for the submission at regular intervals of reports on the measures adopted to give effect to Article 4; (2) consult regularly on employment problems; and (3) hold special conferences in case of threat of widespread unemployment.

Article 7. Assignment of Functions to Economic and Social Council In accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, the Economic and Social Council will be responsible for furthering the objectives of Chapter III and supervising the fulfillment of the obligations assumed under Article 6.

CHAPTER IV. GENERAL COMMERCIAL POLICY

SECTION A. GENERAL COMMERCIAL PROVISIONS

Article 8. General Most-Favored-Nation Treatment

1. With respect to customs duties and charges of any kind imposed on or in connection with importation or exportation or imposed on the international transfer of payments for imports or exports, and with respect to the method of levying such duties and charges, and with respect to all rules and formalities in connection with importation or exportation, and with respect to all matters relating to internal taxation or regulation referred to in Article 9, any advantage, favor, privilege or immunity granted by any Member country to any product originating in or destined for any other country, shall be accorded immediately and unconditionally to the like product originating in or destined for all other Member countries. The principle underlying this paragraph shall also extend to the awarding by Members of governmental contracts for public works, in respect of which each Member shall accord fair and equitable treatment to the commerce of the other Members.

2. The provisions of paragraph 1 of this Article shall not be construed to require the elimination of any preference in the rate of ordinary import customs duty which does not exceed the preference in force in any Member country on July 1, 1939 and which falls within the descriptions set forth in (a) or (b), below, but such preferences shall in no event be increased above their level on July 1, 1946 and shall be subject to processes of elimination pursuant to the provisions of Article 18:

a. Preferences in force exclusively between territories in respect of which there existed on July 1, 1939 common sovereignty or relations of protection or suzerainty. Each Member to which this provision applies shall provide a list of such territories in respect of which preferences were in force on that date, which lists shall be incorporated in an annex to this Charter.

b. Preferences in force exclusively between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba.

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Article 9. National Treatment on Internal Taxation and Regulation

1. The products of any Member country imported into any other Member country shall be exempt from internal taxes and other internal charges higher than those imposed on like products of national origin, and shall be accorded treatment no less favorable than that accorded like products of national origin in respect of all internal laws, regulations or requirements affecting their sale, transportation or distribution or affecting their mixing, processing, exhibition or other use, including laws and regulations governing the procurement by governmental agencies of supplies for public use other than by or for the military establishment. The provisions of this paragraph shall be understood to preclude the application of internal requirements restricting the amount or proportion of an imported product permitted to be mixed, processed, exhibited or used.

2. The Members recognize that the imposition of internal taxes on the products of other Member countries, for the purpose of affording protection to the domestic production of competitive products, would be contrary to the spirit of this Article, and they agree to take such measures as may be open to them to prevent in the future the adoption of new or higher taxes of this kind within their territories.

Article 10. Freedom of Transit

1. There shall be freedom of transit through the Member countries via the routes most convenient for international transit for traffic in transit to or from other Member countries.

2. Any Member may require that traffic in transit through its territory be entered at the proper customhouse, but, except in cases of failure to comply with applicable customs laws and regulations, such traffic coming from or going to other Member countries shall be exempt from the payment of any transit duty, customs duty, or similar charge, and shall not be subject to any unnecessary delays or restrictions.

3. All charges and regulations imposed by Members on traffic in transit to or from other Member countries shall be reasonable, having regard to the conditions of the traffic.

4. With respect to all charges, rules, and formalities in connection with transit, each Member shall accord to traffic in transit to or from any other Member country treatment no less favorable than the treatment accorded to traffic in transit to or from any other country.

5. Each Member shall accord to products which have been in transit through any other Member country treatment no less favorable than that which would have been accorded to such products had they been transported from their origin to their destination without going through such other Member country.

6. Persons, baggage and goods, and also vessels, coaching and goods stock, and other means of transport, shall be deemed to be in transit across the territory of a Member when the passage across such territory, with or without transshipment, warehousing, breaking bulk, or change in the mode of transport, is only a portion of a complete journey, beginning and terminating beyond the frontier of the Member across whose territory the transit takes place. Traffic of this nature is termed in this Article "traffic in transit."

Article 11. Antidumping and Countervailing Duties

1. No antidumping duty shall be imposed on any product of any Member country imported into any other Member country in excess of an amount equal to the margin of dumping under which such product is being imported. For the purposes of this Article, the margin of dumping shall be understood to mean the amount by which the price of a product exported from one country to another is less than (a) the comparable price charged for the like or similar product to buyers in the domestic market of the exporting country, or, (b) in the absence of such domestic price, the highest comparable price at which the like or similar product is sold for export to any third country, or, (c) in the absence of (a) and (b), the cost of production of the product in the country of origin; with due allowance in each case for differences in conditions and terms of sale, for differences in taxation, and for other differences affecting price comparability.

2. No countervailing duty shall be imposed on any product of any Member country imported into any other Member country in excess of an amount equal to the estimated bounty or subsidy ascertained to have been granted, directly or indirectly, on the production or export of such product in the country of origin or exportation.

3. No product of any Member country imported into any other Member country shall be subject to antidumping or countervailing duty by reason of the exemption of such product from duties or taxes imposed in the country of origin or exportation upon the like product when consumed domestically.

4. No product of any Member country imported into any other Member country shall be subject to both antidumping and countervailing duty to compensate for the same situation of dumping or export subsidization.

5. Each Member undertakes that as a general rule it will not impose any antidumping duty or countervailing duty on the importation of any product of other Member countries unless it determines that the dumping or subsidization, as the case may be, under which such product.