ATL—Accelerated Tariff Liberalization, which is what all the fuss is about.

BITs—Bilateral Investment Treaties, agreements on investments between pairs of countries. The profusion of them, and their inconsistencies, led in part to the push for the MAI).

CAC—Codex Alimentarius Commission, a shadowy organization within the FAO whose purpose is to "facilitate international trade" by establishing standards for food safety.

FAO—Food and Agriculture Organization, part of the United Nations. Supposed to help farmers worldwide.

FTAA—Free Trade Area of the Americas, the goal of ongoing negotiations among governments of the Western Hemisphere hoping to unite their economies into a "single free-trade arrangement."

GATT—The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, first adopted in 1947 and subsumed by the WTO in 1995. The GATT was an agreement administered by a secretariat. WTO is an institution, and far more powerful.

GMO—Genetically Modified Organism, also called transgenic organism. This is what many people and countries insist should be listed when it occurs in food.

ICSID—International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, an organization created by the World Bank for the secret settlement of challenges by foreign investors against governments.

JITAP—Joint Integrated Technical Assistance Project

MAI—Multilateral Agreement on Investment, an attempt to ease restrictions on cross-border investing that was blocked by massive public outcry in 1998. It, or some version of it, is likely to be a hot topic at the Ministerial in Seattle.

NAAEC—North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, the environmental side-agreement to NAFTA.

NAFTA—The North American Free Trade Agreement, which includes Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.

OECD—The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of29 of the world’s wealthiest nations gathered to promote their economic interests.

SPS—Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures are restrictions on laws designed to protect health.

TNC—Trans-National Corporation, a stateless entity with offices in many lands. They used to be called Multi-National Corporations but now can operate almost independently of any national government.

TRIPS—Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights, legalese for, among other things, the desire by some TNCs to patent life forms.

UNCTAD—Untied Nations Commission on Trade and Development.

Countervailing Duties—Duties imposed to compensate for competitive advantage created by suvsidies given by the country of manufacture.

Dumping—The practice of unloading products "at less than fair value" in foreign countries, which hurts domestic consumers and raises hell with the economy of the country where the goods are dumped.

Expropriation—In general, the seizing of property by the government. In the trade context, some have argued that it can also mean the interference with an individual’s or a corporation’s god-given right to make a profit. The best-known current case involves the Ethyl Corporation, which extorted $13 million from the Canadian government for trying to ban one of its products that can cause brain damage. Ethyl not only got the money, but got the regulation repealed.

Food Security—"The ability of all individuals and families in a community, region, or nation to provide themselves, on an on-going basis, with an adequate and nutritious diet, through having adequate income to acquire food and/or secure access to adequate food producing resources" (Peter Rosset, Food First). WTO rules threaten this principle by requiring countries to sell stockpiles in times of abundance, then, in times of natural disaster, buy emergency supplies on the world market, when prices are highest because supplies are scarce.

Harmonize—Bringing consistency to rules and regulations. Opponents argue a better practical definition might be, Seeking the lowest common denominator.

Intellectual Property Rights—In the international trade context this often applies to the ability of corporations to patent life forms, so far mainly seeds and some ingredients in drugs. In practice, it means that large agricultural enterprises believe they should be allowed to patent seed grains and forbid farmers from using part of this year’s crop for next year’s seed without paying a royalty.

Non-Tariff Barriers—Regulations that may impede trade without imposition of taxes. For example, a regulation banning the use of asbestos clearly impedes trade in asbestos and materials made with it. Similarly, domestic regulations requiring government agencies to buy recycled paper might be considered a non-tariff barrier by an exporter of structly virgin paper.

Precautionary Principle—Look before you leap. Or, if you came upon an exotic plant, you would certainly refrain from eating it until you were sure it wouldn’t make you sick. The most widely accepted definitions permit a government to take precautionary action when there is some possibility of harm, "threats of serious or irreversible damage" is how the Rio Declaration put it. The anti-precautionary side argues that the burden of proof is on the other side, which must prove that a substance is harmful. In the beef hormone squabble, the WTO panels refused to consider evidence that lab animals had higher cancer rates after exposure to the hormones as sufficient evidence of risk to humans.

Tariffs—Taxes on the value of imported goods, traditionally used to protect domestic markets and jobs.