Consider the following statements : 1. WTO was set up as the successor to GATT. 2. IAEA teams inspect nuclear facilities all over the world. 3. Amnesty International is an NGO. How many of the statements given above are correct?

Correct — D, 3. Each of the three statements is accurate. The World Trade Organization came into being on 1 January 1995 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, created at the end of the Uruguay Round to give the trading system a permanent institutional home and a binding dispute settlement mechanism — statement 1 holds. The International Atomic Energy Agency sends inspection teams to nuclear facilities in states across the world under safeguards agreements, verifying that nuclear material is not diverted from peaceful use — statement 2 holds. Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation, founded in 1961 and funded by its members rather than by governments, campaigning for human rights worldwide — statement 3 holds. All three, so the count is three.

• (a)Nil — Nil would require all three to be false, when each restates a standard description of the body concerned.
• (b)1 — One would require two of the three to be false.
• (c)2 — Two is the natural answer for a candidate who hesitates over the IAEA statement, reading 'all over the world' as a claim of universal and unconditional access. The Agency inspects under safeguards agreements rather than at will, but its inspections do span states across the world, which is what the statement says.

The three bodies illustrate three different kinds of international actor. The World Trade Organization is a treaty-based intergovernmental organisation with binding rules and a dispute settlement system, and it replaced an agreement that had operated provisionally since 1948. The International Atomic Energy Agency is an autonomous organisation within the United Nations system that both promotes peaceful nuclear technology and verifies non-diversion through safeguards. Amnesty International is a membership-based non-governmental organisation whose influence rests on documentation and publicity rather than on treaty powers.

The trap in this item is the word 'all', which invites a candidate to reject statement 2 for overreach. Read it as it is written: inspection teams do visit facilities in many countries around the world, and the statement makes no claim about inspecting every facility or entering without consent. Applying the same discipline to statement 3 is worth it too — Amnesty International is often assumed to be a United Nations body because of its standing, but it accepts no government funding and is a non-governmental organisation in the strict sense. Statement 1 is the least contentious of the three and should be settled in a second.

• The World Trade Organization was established on 1 January 1995 as the successor to the GATT.
• It emerged from the Uruguay Round and added a binding dispute settlement mechanism.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency verifies non-diversion of nuclear material through safeguards inspections.
• The IAEA was set up in 1957 and is an autonomous body within the United Nations system, headquartered at Vienna.
• Amnesty International, founded in 1961 and based in London, is a non-governmental human rights organisation.

• Rejecting a statement because it contains the word 'all' without checking what is being claimed.
• Treating Amnesty International as a United Nations agency because of its international standing.
• Confusing the GATT, which continues as an agreement, with the GATT organisation that the WTO replaced.

Asked as a how-many-are-correct item on three international bodies, where an absolute-sounding phrase in one statement invites unnecessary doubt.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The World Trade Organization came into existence on 1 January 1995 as a result of which round of negotiations?

  • (a)The Tokyo Round
  • (b)The Uruguay Round
  • (c)The Doha Round
  • (d)The Kennedy Round

  Answer(b) The Uruguay Round — which converted the GATT arrangement into a permanent organisation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The International Atomic Energy Agency is headquartered at

  • (a)Geneva
  • (b)Vienna
  • (c)The Hague
  • (d)Paris

  Answer(b) Vienna — from where it administers its safeguards inspections.