Four sessions of the UNU Institute of Advanced Studies Tokyo Round Table were also convened in 2003.

This is why they were called the “unfinished business” of the Tokyo Round, and subsequently also became the unfinished business of the Uruguay Round.

The Swiss formula is a method of tariff reduction used in the Tokyo Round of the GATT negotiations that reduces higher tariffs by greater amounts compared with lower ones.

Experience since the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations shows that their integration cannot be achieved without better market access based on the principle of special and differential treatment on a non-reciprocal basis.

Compared to the Tokyo Round Subsidies Code, the Uruguay Round Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) provided more explicit definitions of subsidies14 and stronger, clearer disciplines on countervailing measures.

Compared to the Tokyo Round Subsidies Code, the Uruguay Round Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) provided more explicit definitions of subsidies and stronger, clearer disciplines over subsidies, but also on the use of countervailing duties.

Thus, the common perception inherited from the Tokyo Round, until the establishment of WTO, of the ADA as the rich man's trade remedy is rapidly changing since many developing countries have become active users of anti-dumping investigations in respect not only of developed countries but also of other developing countries and, in extreme cases, least developed countries (LDCs).

For example, the Tokyo Round Decision on Differential and More Favourable Treatment, Reciprocity and Fuller Participation of Developing Countries (also known as the Enabling Clause) of 1979 legitimized the GSP, which was adopted at UNCTAD II, and provided legal cover for regional agreements among developing countries and special treatment for LDCs, It also provided that obligations assumed by developing countries “be designed and, if necessary, modified to respond positively to the development, financial and trade needs of developing countries.”

The supporting role of the secretariat could be substantially enhanced if UNCTAD were granted observer status in WTO negotiating bodies, as was the case during the Tokyo and Uruguay Rounds.

Last year, the UNCTAD Trade and Development Report revisited the concept. It found that, in spite of the results of the Tokyo and Uruguay Rounds, the average trade deficit of developing countries in the nineties was 3 percentage points of GDP higher than in the seventies, whereas economic growth was 2 points lower.