Ambassador Julio Lacarte-Muró was a distinguished Uruguayan diplomat and a central figure in the development of the multilateral trading system. He participated in the 1946 Preparatory Committee for the proposed International Trade Organization and the 1947 Havana Conference and later served as Uruguay’s Representative to the GATT in Geneva. As Deputy Executive Secretary of the GATT Secretariat and later Uruguay’s Minister of Industry and Trade, he played a key role in the initiation of the Uruguay Round and chaired its negotiating group on dispute settlement, under whose leadership the Dispute Settlement Understanding was negotiated. With the establishment of the WTO in 1995, Lacarte became one of the original seven members of the Appellate Body and served as its first Chair. He also served as Uruguay’s ambassador to Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, the European Common Market, Germany, Japan, and the United States, as well as concurrently to India and Thailand.