Moment of Truth for the World Trade Organization

THIS WEEKEND,Trade Ministers of the 164 Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO),will gather in Geneva, Switzerland, for the 12th Session of the WTO’s Ministerial Conference (MC12). MC12 will run from June, 12-15,2022.The WTO performs many roles. It focuses on trade opening. It is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements. It is a place for them to settle trade disputes. It operates a system of trade rules.The WTO is a place where member governments attempt to sort out the trade problems they face with each other.

Overall, the WTO is the leading global organization for the governance of trade relations between and amongst countries.

Sometimes, global organizations can seem far removed from the everyday circumstances of most people. However, much of what goes on in entities such as the WTO ultimately have an impact on the ground.

For example, rulings made by a WTO panel and subsequent Appellate Body proceedings undermined the preferential status of bananas exported from the English-speaking Caribbean to the European Communities.With the loss of these preferences, the industry could no longer compete against banana producers in some Central and South American countries. Today, the banana industry across much of the English-speaking Caribbean is all but decimated.

In some ways, notwithstanding the letter of the WTO’s founding instrument which speaks to ensuring that developing countries, and especially the least developed among them, secure a share in the growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development, the WTO can sometimes seem to be a forum driven by and for the large and powerful. For nearly three years, the United States (US) has blocked the appointment of members to the organization’s Appellate Body, crippling the right of final appeal for all WTO Members in the process. Many small states often feel that issues of importance to them, such as being able to carve out adequate policy space for developmental purposes, are often put on the back burner.

Beyond these issues, there are also broader problems of trust among Members of the WTO.

What else could explain the long delays in arriving at consensus decisions? Since its founding in 1995, WTO Members have only managed to agree on one agreement, the Trade Facilitation Agreement concluded in 2013. Fisheries Subsidies negotiations were launched in 2001 and 20 years later, there is still no agreement.

The Doha Development Agenda was launched in 2001 without much discernible

progress since. When Trade Ministers launched the Doha Round, they placed development at its core with the needs and interests of developing and least-developed countries seen as paramount. However, most developed countries have moved on from Doha, seeing it as dead, whilst many developing Members continue to insist that Doha is very much alive.

If ever there was evidence of inertia or institutional rot, one may only need to look as far as the WTO. Of course, this is no fault of the organization itself, since it is Members’-driven and it can only go as far and as fast as its Members would allow.

Given the range of economic challenges facing the world today, there is perhaps no better time for the WTO’s revival.The COVID-19 pandemic has had a deleterious impact on the economies and trade of all countries, with the smallest and most vulnerable the hardest hit.

Global supply chain challenges and a food security crisis have brought into sharp focus the relevance of the WTO as a global trade forum.

Over the next few days in Geneva, Trade Ministers have an opportunity to restore credibility and trust to the WTO.This can be done by launching a process for the reform and modernization of the organization; by concluding an agreement to limit and ultimately eliminate harmful fisheries subsidies; by agreeing to a robust WTO response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a waiver of intellectual property rights for the production of COVID-19 vaccines; and by sending a strong political message of their commitment to a more viable and durable multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core.

Joel K Richards is a Vincentian national living and working in Europe in the field of international trade and development. Email: joelkmrichards@gmail.com