°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ: 2005 PRESS RELEASES
Press/402
19 April 2005
HISTORICAL
ARCHIVES
°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ welcomes public access to historical GATT documents on the Internet
°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ (°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ) welcomes the launch by Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) of a to permit public access to de-restricted documents of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ.
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“The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ has worked with SULAIR to make this historic collection accessible to
the public as part of our on-going efforts to share information that contributes
to a better understanding of the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ and the multilateral trading system,” said
°ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi. “The work carried out by SULAIR to
scan these thousands of documents and make them available through the Internet
will be especially important for academics, trade specialists and others with an
interest in how the trading system evolved in the GATT era, from 1947 to 1994.”
Another objective of the project carried out by SULAIR and the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ was to ensure
the preservation of this unique collection of documents, which had until now
only been available in the original paper versions. The collection being made
available by SULAIR consists essentially of English language documents.
The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ website currently offers public access to over 150,000 °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ official
documents in English, French and Spanish from 1995 to the present. The addition
of GATT documents from 1947 to 1994 on the SULAIR website will be a complement
to the °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ collection.
The °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²Ê¹ÙÍø×ÊÁÏ Secretariat has worked with the SUL team to sort and organize the GATT
documents, under an agreement which saw SULAIR assume the costs for the work of
scanning and converting the documents to electronic versions.