WTO Must Evolve from an Organisation to a Strong Institution: Experts

"The World Trade Organization's institutional inertia has only recently been broken. Full restoration of the dispute settlement mechanism and agreement on the shape of WTO reform remain difficult," said Pradeep Mehta, Secretary General of CUTS International. He was making opening remarks at a CUTS webinar on the future of the World Trade Organization.

The programme, titled "Future of the WTO or WTO of the Future?" was the first in a series following the recently concluded 12th Ministerial Conference of the WTO (MC12), and featured a number of distinguished panellists discussing a variety of WTO reform issues. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, former Deputy Chairman of India's Planning Commission, moderated the discussion.

The MC12 was discussed to see if it could provide a boost to the institution's negotiating, monitoring, and dispute resolution functions. While some panellists thought MC12 was a victory in and of itself, others disagreed.

According to their argument, if the WTO fails to address fundamental issues like the scope and role of consensus in decision-making, it will continue to lag behind free trade agreements (FTAs). Not only are FTAs exceeding WTO rules, but they are also diverging from one another and fragmenting the trading order.