The Facts

The WTO was set up in 1994 as the result of a major overhaul of the system of trade rules set up after the Second World War.

In its purest sense, this refers to the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, resulting in the free movement of goods, services, capital and people between countries, so that it is the same as such activity within a country.

Article 24 is a provision of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and is a World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement.

This is part of the agreements within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) aimed at reducing barriers to the trade in services.

It means that WTO members cannot discriminate between their trading partners and must, with a few exceptions, offer access to their market on the same terms for all WTO members.

The maximum facilitation proposals were a suggested solution to the problem of the need to create a border on the island of Ireland.

The idea of a bespoke deal for the UK was that it would be fundamentally different to any existing agreement the EU has with a third country.

A non-tariff barrier is a policy implemented by a government that acts as a cost or impediment to trade. Read this fact to find out more.

The idea of a facilitated customs partnership was first proposed by Theresa May’s government in May 2018. Read this fact to find out more.

This is an agreement of World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to mutually open up their markets for selling goods and services to governments, often including regional and local governments.

When goods are traded between countries, there is typically a fee charged for a good entering a different territory.

It is an agreement between the UK and Ireland that allows citizens from either country to travel freely between both without the need for passport checks.