The Final Act authenticating the results of the 1964–67 Trade Conference, held under the auspices of the CONTRACTING PARTIES to the GATT, was signed in Geneva on 30 June 1967, in a single copy, the English and French texts being authentic. The Conference had opened on 4 May 1964, following the decision of 21 May 1963. Signature of the Final Act evidences the intention of each signatory to take, subject to its constitutional procedures, such steps as are considered appropriate to give effect to those instruments in the negotiation of which it has participated. It is not the Uruguay Round of 1994, nor the 1947 Geneva Protocol that opened the GATT.

The Act authenticates eight instruments: the Geneva (1967) Protocol to the GATT; the Agreement relating principally to Chemicals, supplementary to that Protocol; the Memorandum of Agreement on Basic Elements for the Negotiation of a World Grains Arrangement; the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the GATT (anti-dumping); and the Protocols for the Accession of Argentina, Iceland, Ireland and Poland. Depositary: the Director-General to the CONTRACTING PARTIES.

The Geneva (1967) Protocol: the schedules annexed become GATT Schedules on the day the Protocol enters into force for the participant. Tariff reductions, at framework level, are staged between 1968 and 1972; fractions and product lists are not transcribed. It shall be open for acceptance, by signature or otherwise, until 30 June 1968, extendable to 31 December 1968. It enters into force on 1 January 1968 for those which have accepted it before 1 December 1967; thereafter, on the date of acceptance. It shall be registered with the United Nations under Article 102 of the Charter.

The Chemicals Agreement is open for acceptance until 31 December 1967 by a limited group of parties and the EEC. The Agreement on Article VI of the GATT interprets dumping at framework level, without an investigation handbook; GATT note: it enters into force on 1 July 1968. The Grains Memorandum opens the same day and enters into force when accepted by the listed governments and the EEC.

Cover: the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the GATT conference venue of the period; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Kennedy Round; Final Act authenticating the Results of the 1964-67 Trade Conference (GATT/WTO).