First January 2005 is an important date in the history of the governance of international trade. It is on this day that two global institutional changes took effect that, taken together, altered the trajectory of trade flows in textiles and pharmaceuticals, two industries that play salient roles in different ways in the economies of a large number of developing and developed countries. Negotiated as a part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’s, or GATT’s, Uruguay Round of talks during the 1986–1994 period, member countries agreed to adopt the Textiles and Clothing (ATC) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreements on 1 January 1995, which were to be phased in over the next ten years. The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing abolished the Multi- Fibre Agreement (MFA), which had governed global trade in textiles since 1974. The MFA endorsed bilaterally negotiated agreements on import quotas by developed countries on the exports of textile products from developing countries. Under the new arrangement after 2005, global trade in textiles and clothing would no longer be subject to protectionist quotas but would be governed by the general rules and disciplines embodied in the multilateral trading system.