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Institutional Developments in the WTO: Recent Trends and the Challenge Going Forward

2015; Springer International Publishing; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-3-662-46748-0_15

2364-8392

Joy Kategekwa,

International Development and Aid

The last 2 years have witnessed the WTO re-stamp its relevance on the face of global trade regulation. Faced with still transmitting effects of the global economic crisis, the organisation found itself re-oriented into roles for which it was not that well known traditionally, i.e. monitoring protectionism. Continued threats from regional trade agreements in both goods and services and increased inward looking policies made it all the more urgent for the WTO to succeed in its negotiation arm. As such, effort, unprecedented in recent years, went into ensuring success at the ninth Ministerial Conference that saw a ground-breaking success in what can be termed as the first real score on a core negotiating area of the DDA: the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The period also saw the WTO open its doors to seven more countries; Russia’s accession clearly standing out, but also important steps in bringing more least developed countries into the fold of the MTS (Lao PDR, Samoa, Yemen, and Vanuatu). Dispute settlement thrived with consideration of previously unchartered territory such as electronic payments in services and trading in natural resources. The Trade Policy Review Mechanism continued to provide a robust opportunity for peer review style assessment of regimes put in place to support implementation of WTO Agreements, and the Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation strengthened its delivery of technical assistance. In all, it was two interesting years with important successes. Yet, the real challenge remains-for success in Bali is known by all to have been but a start…