Uruguay Round

The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), spanning from 1986 to 1994 and embracing 123 countries as "contracting parties". The Round led to the creation of the World Trade Organization, with GATT remaining as an integral part of the WTO agreements. The broad mandate of the Round had been to extend GATT trade rules to areas previously exempted as too difficult to liberalize (agriculture, textiles) and increasingly important new areas previously not included (trade in services, intellectual property, investment policy trade distortions). The Round came into effect in 1995 with deadlines ending in 2000 (2004 in the case of developing country contracting parties) under the administrative direction of the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO).

The Doha Development Round was the next trade round, beginning in 2001 and still unresolved after missing its official deadline of 2005.

The main objectives of the Uruguay Round were:

They also wanted to draft a code to deal with copyright violation and other forms of intellectual property rights.

The round was launched in Punta del Este, Uruguay in September 1986, followed by negotiations in Geneva, Brussels, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo, with the 20 agreements finally being signed in Marrakesh—the Marrakesh Agreement—in April 1994.

...
Wikipedia