GATT Digital Archive: 1947 – 1994

The Stanford University Libraries embarked on a multi-year project to capture digitally a significant collection of archival material , internal documents and selected publications produced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The result was a unique digital collection of source material vital to the study of the economic, political, and diplomatic history of the latter half of the 20th century. The project’s goals are to both assure the long-term survival of this information (preservation component) and enhanced access to the material on the part of scholars, non-governmental organizations, commercial enterprises, and the public in general (access component). The project involves on-site digital capture, metadata gathering, file processing, access control, output design, and long-term electronic document management. Begun in the summer of 1999, we expect to complete the capture phase of the project within five years, with an estimated scope of at least 2,200,000 page images.

Public Website

A website providing access to derestricted documents and publications digitized by the project with the support of a grant by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has been established at https://gatt.stanford.edu. As content within the archive is derestricted by the World Trade Organization, the content of this site will expand.

Stanford University Libraries have embarked on a multi-year project to capture digitally a significant collection of archival material, internal documents and selected publications produced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland.? The result will be a unique digital collection of source material vital to the study of the economic, political, and diplomatic history of the latter half of the 20th Century.? The project?s goals are to both assure the long-term survival of this information (preservation component) and enhanced access to the material on the part of scholars, non-governmental organizations, commercial enterprises, and the public in general (access component).?? The project involves on-site digital capture, metadata gathering, file processing, access control, output design, and long-term electronic document management. Begun in the summer of 1999, we expect to complete the project within five years, with an estimated scope of at least 2,200,000 page images.

Background
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is the predecessor to the World Trade Organization (WTO), an international governmental organization (IGO) that received much attention during its meetings in Seattle in the autumn of 1999.? GATT was active under that name from 1947 until 1994, when WTO was founded. The records of GATT are now managed by WTO in Geneva. WTO has no centralized, organized archival system due to insufficient budgetary resources.?? In part as a result of this budgetary shortfall, the WTO does not currently possess staff time necessary to review for declassification much of its historical archives.?? Government delegations, sponsored individuals, and a select group of scholars are provided various levels of access to protected materials in Geneva.

In 1996 at the request of Congress, Stanford Professor Judith Goldstein was officially sponsored by the United States Trade Representatives Geneva Mission to receive access to a large range of WTO and historical GATT documentation including a large percentage that remains inaccessible to the public. The Stanford University Libraries acquired a large collection of GATT documentation on microfiche.

The last status report was on 2003. All the status reports are in https://gatt-archive.stanford.edu.

Author: international

Mentioned in these Entries

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.