World Trading System under Stress: Scenarios for the Future

Asian Economic Papers, 2019

The current trade turmoil is not limited to negative economic effects stemming from the series of recent trade measures erected by the United States as part of the escalating U.S.–China trade war. The more serious issue that will unfold in the middle to long term is the potential collapse of the rule-based trading regime. The weakening of the multilateral trading system centered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) seems to continue. East Asia has been one of the largest beneficiaries of the rule-based trading regime in its course of extending and deepening international production networks and must now take proactive moves to defend and preserve this stable economic environment. Two crucial tasks in the preservation of the WTO are efforts to maintain the functionality of the dispute settlement mechanism and the revival of the WTO as a forum for future trade negotiations. At the same time, East Asia must develop a network of mega–free trade agreements (FTAs) to partially supplement...

ICTSD Programme on Global Economic Policy and Institutions, 2012

The essays included in this book deal with a variety of topics, ranging from the functioning of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the role of emerging economies to regional agreements and institutional challenges. They were written by a set of distinguished academics, policymakers, and practitioners, which, together, offer a very rich and enlightened perspective on the tasks ahead. The essays were originally commissioned by the International Centre on Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) to provide participants at the Eighth WTO Ministerial Conference in 2011 and the Trade and Development Symposium (TDS) that took place in parallel with it, with up-to-date analysis on the most pressing issues that the multilateral trading system currently faces. No unified views can be found in this volume. The challenges as well as the opportunities that the multilateral trading system is confronted with are diverse and can be – indeed are – subject to different interpretations. Uniform and eventually consensus solutions have yet to be found, and the aim of this volume is to help in the search for them by providing brief, but thorough analyses on the most pressing issues in today ́s global trade environment.

1989

International Organisations Research Journal

This article substantiates the necessity of reform of the major institution of global economic governance, the World Trade Organization (WTO). A number of crucial problems facing the existing multilateral trading system (MTS) are explored: the problem of the development and efficiency of the WTO in the new environment; the weakening of the leadership role of the U.S.; regionalism; the crisis of the decision-making system in the WTO; and the recent rise of trade protectionism. These challenges point to the necessity of WTO reform, the latter two being particularly pressing since they eventually moved the issue from the realm of scientific discussion into the realm of practical initiatives. This article analyzes the first steps taken by members of the WTO in 2018 toward the organization's reform, focusing on the EU's concept paper on WTO modernization, which was the first such initiative. Emphasis is given to the pivotal role of the positions of the U.S. and China since it is hardly possible to successfully continue the process of WTO reform without them. The controversial position of the U.S., formed largely under the influence of the current isolationist and protectionist trade policy of the Trump administration, is analyzed in depth. The article concludes that the process of WTO reform is bound to be extremely complicated and may take years.

This article investigates the role of rising powers in the global trading system – within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and beyond the WTO. It explores the emergence of bilateral and (mega-)regional agreements such as the Transpacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and their implications for the global governance of international trade. It examines how China and other rising powers are reacting to the changing landscape of trade governance and explores the impacts on developing and emerging economies. Safeguarding the future of the global trading system – especially the WTO as a forum for multilateral negotiations – requires reform. The article assesses the current institutional inequality of the global trade system and argues that the status quo serves to limit change within the WTO. The current institutional set-up of the global trading system beyond the WTO must also be examined. The article further points out that the G20 could play a key role in the WTO and reform of the global trading system.

2015

International trade is facing some significant challenges: a serious deadlock to conclude the last round of the multilateral negotiation at the WTO, the fragmentation of trade rules by the multiplication of preferential and mega agreements, the arrival of a new model of global production and trade leaded by global value chains that is threatening the old trade order, and the imposition of new sets of regulations by private bodies commanded by transnationals to support global value chains and non-governmental organizations to reflect the concerns of consumers in the North. The lack of any multilateral order in this new regulation is creating a big cacophony of rules and developing a new regulatory war.

Z. Kembayev, RE Lutz ‘Ten Years of the WTO: Reflections on the Future of Regional and Global Trade’ 34 International Law News 1, 6-7, 2005

Journal of Economic Integration, 2015

Whether international economic integration arrangements result in a more liberal trade at the multilateral level cannot be proven with ease. Integration may start this process, but it may also reverse it. New mega-integration deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are under negotiation. The American policy of creating trade rules for decades to come without the involvement of China in rulemaking may backfire. If China faces a choice of capitulation or exclusion, it may create a parallel trade and payments system. The World Trade Organization still has important assets: to convene meetings and to settle trade disputes. If the World Trade Organization transforms its role from trade liberalisation forum into an institution which supervises and administers international trade rules and obligations, this may be a realistic development given the

2020

n the twentieth anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2015, the outlook was sanguine as negotiators, trade practitioners and academics around the world reflected on the success of the Uruguay Round and the WTO's achievements and contemplated its future at celebratory international conferences. Discussion tentatively turned to a possible future reform agenda but with little sense of urgency. Reform was seen more as potential embellishment rather than necessity. With the adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 and the Paris Agreement on climate change that same year, the world seemed to bask in a warm and inspiring glow of global solidarity. It seemed that the international community was recognizing that assuring our future prosperity depended not only on liberalizing trade but also on achieving environmental sustainability, social and economic equality, political stability and access to justice. But this cooperative spirit proved short-lived and long-simmering dissatisfactions with trade resurfaced, followed by convulsive reversals and a surprising return to protectionism. In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, and Donald Trump won the presidency of the United States on a campaign of "America first" in an election in which neither Republican nor Democratic party leaders supported free trade. Despite the evident and widely distributed gains from global trade, 1 populism was fuelling political upheaval and bringing to the fore growing discontent about impacts of trade that had been festering for many years: the hollowing out and decay of once great industrial cities and the individual loss of well-paid and steady factory work. The US administration channelled the popular discontent into nationalist foreign policy, distrust of the rules-based international order, disregard of international ties and commitments, and resort to security exceptions, tariffs and trade wars. The global trading system has been battered by this approach, with growth slowing in 2019 to three percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. And while nations cooperated to resolve the 2008 financial crisis, that urge to work together to solve global issues has been subdued. 2

Business and Politics, 2000

Reform of the multilateral trade regime is not simply a second order problem within a wider economic crisis. The completion of the Doha Round may be a second order question but the global trade regime faces a series of broader systemic challenges beyond the completion of the current negotiations. This paper identifies five challenges: (i) a marked reduction in popular support for open markets in major OECD countries; (ii) the stalling of a transition from one global economic equilibrium to another; (iii) a lack of clarity and agreement on the agenda and objectives for the WTO as we move deeper into the 21st century; (iv) the demand for fairness and justice in the governance of the WTO-the 'legitimacy' question and (v) the rise of regional preferentialism as a challenge to multilateralism. Failure to address these challenges will represent not only a fundamental question for the future of the WTO as the guarantor of the norms and rules of the global trade regime specifically, but also the ability to establish greater coherence in global economic governance overall when its need is arguably greater than at any time since the depression years of the 20th century inter-war period.