ACCESSION TO THE WTO. CASE: THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Öz

The purpose of the paper is to discuss process and procedures of WTO accession in the context of universal membership. This is done by looking at the experience of the Russian Federation (Russia). With a notable exception of the Russian Federation, all major trading nations are WTO members. One of the challenges confronting WTO will be to manage the process of integrating Russia and other acceding countries into the trading system. It could be reasonable to ask why the WTO accession process takes so long and is inherently time consuming, despite the fact that it is complex due to the requirements that need to be met. This article identifies the weak points in the accession process and makes some recommendations.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Accession, WTO, Membership, Applicant, the Russian Federation