Olivier Long
Encyclopedia
Olivier Long was a Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 Ambassador and the director-general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...

 from May 6, 1968 to October 1, 1980.

Long was born in Petit-Veyrier, Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. He had a Doctor of Laws of the University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

 and Doctor of Political Science of the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...

.

Olivier Long helped keep the Western world moving toward freer trade in the 1970s despite protectionist pressures brought on by soaring oil prices, inflation and recession.

As director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was negotiated during the UN Conference on Trade and Employment and was the outcome of the failure of negotiating governments to create the International Trade Organization . GATT was signed in 1947 and lasted until 1993, when it was replaced by the World...

 from 1968 to 1980, Mr. Long helped to bring about the largest reductions in tariffs since World War II. GATT, an organization based in Geneva, was created in 1948 to oversee international trade.

Mr. Long was the second director general of GATT, taking over from Eric Wyndham White, who had run the organization for the first 20 years of its existence. At first he was reluctant to take the job, since doing so meant giving up his post as Switzerland's ambassador to Britain and Malta, which he had accepted in 1967.

Representatives of the leading industrial nations met at a 1973 summit meeting in Tokyo, setting off a six-year free-trade effort that became known as the Tokyo Round. These were difficult years for proponents of free trade. When oil prices quadrupled at the end of 1973—a consequence of actions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries—the twin shocks of recession and inflation rippled through the world economy. National currencies became exceptionally unstable.

Industries everywhere pleaded with their governments for protection against foreign competitors. Yet Mr. Long managed to hold the world's democratic industrial governments, as well as some 20 developing countries, to the free trade commitments they had made at the start of negotiations.

Not only did many tariffs drop, the Tokyo Round also represented the most comprehensive effort until then to eliminate or control other sorts of trade barriers, like quotas and export subsidies.

In 1995, at the conclusion of another trade-liberalizing exercise known as the Uruguay Round, GATT's role in governing world commerce was assumed by the World Trade Organization, a new and more powerful institution.

Olivier Long was born at Petit-Veyrier, Switzerland, near Geneva, on Oct. 11, 1915. He was educated at the University of Paris and the University of Geneva, where he completed his doctorate in law. After military service in 1939-43, he joined the International Red Cross and traveled across wartime Europe, negotiating prisoner-of-war exchanges. After the war, he joined the Swiss federal government, and after service in Washington he began to work on trade issues.

He had close personal ties with many leading French politicians, and as a result became an intermediary between Charles de Gaulle's government in Paris and the Algerian National Liberation Front. He helped set up the talks that led to the Evian agreements of 1962, which ended the Algerian war.

Mr. Long returned to commercial diplomacy, playing a prominent role in negotiations that led to creation of the European Free Trade Association, a trading bloc set up in 1959 by seven European countries that did not wish to join the six-nation European Community, or Common Market.

He is survived by his wife, the former Francine Roels, whom he married in 1946, and by two daughters and a son.

Mr. Long was also a Professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies
Graduate Institute of International Studies
The Graduate Institute of International Studies, best known as HEI , was founded in 1927 as one of the first institutions in the world dedicated to the study of international relations...

 in Geneva. He was the author of several books and articles on economic affairs and political science

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