The main objective of the paper was to analyze the institutional aspects of the functioning of the World Trade Organization. To this end, the structure of the 1994 WTO Agreement, the Organization's tasks, the principles of membership acquisition, as well as the organs and the decision-making rules of the WTO were presented. The WTO is (as opposed to GATT 1947) a fully structured international organization and its operation is of utmost importance for gradual abolition of restrictions on the global trade in goods, services and intellectual property rights. Thus, the knowledge of the WTO's functioning principles is a factor substantially facilitating the understanding of the globalization process.
Relations between the USA and the EU as members of the World Trade Organization are function of trade disputes and cooperation. The role of the WTO in dealing with trade conflicts between the USA and the EU consists in inducing both sides to respect the resolutions issued by the Dispute Settlement Body and the Apellate Body, which are internal elements of the organizational structure of this institution. In turn cooperation between the USA and the EU on the WTO forum manifests itself in developing and adjusting aspects of transatlantic dialogue to trade standards introduced by the WTO and in presenting a common stand during trade negotiations with developing countries. Both cooperation and competition between the above mentioned actors of international economic relations is necessary to maintain not only the current round of trade negotiations of the WTO launched at Doha in 2001, but also a plurilateral trade system.
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