Interested in the outcomes of the World Trade Organization MC12?

Interested in the outcomes of the World Trade Organization MC12? Please join us next Monday on this SIEL Conversation, with present and former officials, negotiators and observers. We’ll discuss what came out of MC12, what was missing, and what the WTO should – and could – become to address the challenges of 21st Century trade. With Anabel González, Bernard Hoekman, Victor do Prado, Peter Ungphakorn and Iryna Polovets.
Register here: https://lnkd.in/eaDc6pMk
The WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference was perhaps the most successful in the organization’s history. WTO Members have been able to agree on a package that, given gloomy prospects and the geopolitical context, was hailed as both meaningful in itself and indicative of a positive outlook for the multilateral trading system. The conclusion of the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, in particular, represents a qualitative change for the WTO, now entrusted not only with addressing trade issues but also with enforcing an environmental agreement.
At the same time, many issues remain unresolved, including the persistent uncertainty in dispute settlement, long-standing disagreements over agriculture, and lack of clarity on what WTO reform should aim to achieve. The ‘trade wars’ era tariffs between US and China and on steel and aluminium trade remain in place. Agreements on some of the most challenging issues of the day, from digital trade and state-owned enterprises to environmental goods, remain elusive. Calls for resilience in supply chains, onshoring and ‘friendshoring’, which appear antithetical to the very spirit of a multilateral trading system, are unlikely to fade away. On some issues, WTO Members seem to have accepted that multilateral rules have given way to the ‘coalition of the willing’ format.
In this one-hour SIEL Conversation, four long-time participants in and observers of WTO negotiations will examine the outcomes of the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference, consider the likely evolution of global trade cooperation over the near future, and discuss the prospects for the newly revitalized institutionalized multilateral trading system. Speakers in this conversation are Anabel González (WTO Deputy Director General), Bernard Hoekman (Professor and Director, Global Economics, European University Institute), Victor do Prado (Brazilian Center for International Relations, former Director, WTO Council and Trade Negotiations Committee Division) and Peter Ungphakorn (Trade β Blog, former WTO Information Officer). The Conversation will be moderated by Iryna Polovets (Advisor to WTO Deputy Director-General Angela Ellard).