... oversee international trade, administer free trade agreements, and settle trade disputes among member nations. However with the WTO, authority was greatly expanded to cover trade in services as well as merchandise - including protection of intellectual property rights associated with such things as artistic recordings, computer programs, and patented genetic materials. Also, the WTO has far greater authority over trade in agricultural commodities than had existed under the GATT. The implicit, if not explicit, objective in forming the WTO was to reduce, and eventually remove, all obstacles to trade, in order to achieve a "global free market." Globalization, in concept, is far broader in meaning than is "global free market." To "globalize," according to Webster's dictionary, means "to make worldwide in scope or application." The objective of the WTO is "to make the economy worldwide in scope." However, we cannot globalize the economy without simultaneously affecting global ecology and global society. ...

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