rom February 26–29, 2024, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will host the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Governments from 164 countries will be joined by Timor-Leste and Comoros, the first two nations to join the group since 2017.
At stake is a fight between two visions of what role the WTO, as the world’s most powerful rule-making body in the global economy, should play.
Should the institution expand as an even more corporate-influenced body, with rich countries allowed to set agendas, impose negotiation mechanisms in their favor, and leave poorer countries — and multilateralism itself — in the dustbin of history?
Or should members of the institution recognize the constraints that the current rules place on developing economies, including the harm caused to workers, farmers, and the global environment, and increase flexibilities so that these countries can use trade for their development?
Ministerial Declaration
Debates over the Ministerial Declaration illustrate most clearly what is at stake. There are two primary assaults through which rich countries are attempting to take the WTO in a more pro-corporate and less multilateral direction. First, by changing the rules on how the WTO operates. Many developed countries, with support from the director-general, are attempting to make it even more responsive to corporate wishes and even less able for developing countries to have a fair shake at negotiations, under the rubric of “WTO reform” and the euphemism “Reform by Doing.” And second, by negotiating plurilateral agreements to replace multilateralism and requirements for consensus and impose an even more neoliberal order, notwithstanding developing-country resistance.
WTO “reform” has emerged as a key focus of WTO activities in recent years. But rather than make the institution more responsive to members’ needs for development policy space, the current efforts must be understood as hijacking the “reform” concept to eviscerate developing countries’ ability to bargain collectively.
Read more at: https://cepr.net/whats-at-stake-at-the-wtos-13th-ministerial-conference-this-month-in-abu-dhabi/