After more than seven years of negotiations in the so-called Uruguay Round, the States Parties of the existing GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) agreed on founding the World Trade Organisation  headquarters in Geneva. The WTO began its work on 1 January 1995 and forms the legal and institutional foundation of the multilateral system of trade.
GATT, which had governed international trade rules since 1948, was integrated under the roof of WTO. While GATT provisions only applied to the commodities trade, however, WTO rules have a wider scope of application: In addition to cross-border commodities trade, the WTO also regulates services, commercial aspects of intellectual property, and public procurements. The rules on public procurement are contained in a plurilateral agreement only binding on some of the WTO member states (also on Liechtenstein).
Liechtenstein signed the founding agreement in Marrakech in 1994 and joined the WTO on 1 September 1995.
Liechtenstein participation in the work of the WTO is undertaken by staff members of the Permanent Mission in Geneva  . Not least because of the limited human resources, the Liechtenstein delegation mainly deals with areas of special and direct importance for Liechtenstein, and for which Liechtenstein has its own negotiation authority. These mainly include services and investments, intellectual property, and public procurement. Liechtenstein participates regularly in these specialized areas and negotiating groups. In addition, Liechtenstein follows the developments in the WTO General Council and the negotiating committees. Liechtenstein has no external trade authority in the previous core area of the WTO/GATT, namely trade in industrial goods and agricultural products. These sectors are negotiated by Switzerland and are applicable to Liechtenstein according to the Customs Treaty.
A new WTO world trade liberalisation round was launched in Doha/Qatar in November 2001. Since then the ongoing negotiations have proven to be the main activity of the Permanent Mission in regard to its work with the WTO. The priority task of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the gradual liberalisation of world trade. Therefore, the contents of the ongoing negotiation round is the further liberalisation of trade with industrial goods, agricultural products and services as well as the further development of the WTO rules network. In general terms, all the aims and contents of the negotiations are of interest for Liechtenstein. As a small state, Liechtenstein is not only dependent on access to the world markets but also on reliable rules and enforceable laws in the world trade, e.g. a well-functioning dispute settlement mechanism.
The negotiations in Geneva turned out to be quite difficult. The stumbling block along the path to further progress in the overall negotiations were the discussion on agriculture. Even though an important step was reached in the end of July 2004, the aims for the Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005 had to be lowered. The final document from Hong Kong – where Liechtenstein was represented by Minister Rita Kieber-Beck as well as Ambassador Norbert Frick – had foresees to fix the modalities (a relatively strictly formulated frame containing concrete numbers and formula) until the end of April 2006 and to stick to the aim of concluding the negotiations until the end of 2006. Neither of the aims could be reached and for some time the negotiations in Geneva were even suspended. In autumn 2007 the negotiations were taken up again in Geneva and intensified in early 2008, so that there is hope again to finalise the Doha round in 2008.
The WTO Agreement does not achieve a level of economic integration comparable to the EEA Agreement. However, WTO offers the Liechtenstein economy - a significant share of whose exports go to non-European countries – an indispensable and reliable legal basis. The dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO is also very important for the protection of Liechtenstein interests in international trade.
The 7th ordinary WTO Ministerial Meeting took place in Geneva from 30 November to 2 December 2009. The main focus of this meeting was not on the ongoing Doha round but on the discussion and review of the operation and functioning of the multilateral trading system in the aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis. At the WTO Ministerial Meeting, Liechtenstein was represented by Minister Aurelia Frick.
The third WTO Trade Policy Review of Switzerland and Liechtenstein took place in Geneva (after 2000 and 2004) on 15 and 16 December 2008 (for Switzerland it was already the fifth review) The review of the trade policy of its member states takes usually place every four years.
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