Two of the most significant success stories of post-war trade diplomacy and multilateral trade negotiations that have occurred under the auspices of the GATT (now the WTO) have been the massive reductions in tariffs, and the establishment of non-discriminatory tariffs as the principal means of trade protection.

When leaders from around the world gather in Seattle, Washington at the end of November 1999, a fresh opportunity to continue dismantling tariff barriers will present itself. This book provides trade negotiators with an indispensable tool that will help them formulate their negotiating objectives and strategies in the area of tariffs; it also provides policy analysts with key data that are necessary to define negotiating scenarios and to impute the corresponding impact on trade, employment and growth.

Finally, students of international trade will no longer need to labour over obtaining comprehensive, detailed, and comparable tariff-line data and could proceed to apply these to policy issues and options.