Ahead of a World Trade Organization Heads of Delegations meeting, the co-convenors engaged in overseeing the dispute settlement reform discussions presented an ambivalent, muddling progress report on the crucial “Appeal/Review” mechanism that is expected to replace the binding Appellate Body, said people familiar with the developments. As part of a transparency exercise, the facilitator tasked with the dispute settlement reform discussions, Ambassador Usha Dwarka Canabady, dispatched a report to trade envoys enclosing the findings by the co-convenors on October 8.
Several World Trade Organization members, including the United States, appear to have informally conveyed their concerns over the legality of the appointment process for the next Director-General to the General Council Chairperson, Ambassador Petter Olberg, said people familiar with the developments. Last week, the Chair launched the appointment process for the next WTO Director-General without the authorization of the General Council.
However, developing countries want the WTO to pursue a positive trade and environment agenda on several fronts, including on the intellectual property rights front to enable the transfer of technologies that would contribute to the mitigation of carbon emissions, sources said. Ahead of the WTO’s Committee on Trade and Environment meeting next week, the submissions made by developing countries stand in contrast to the issues raised by industrialized countries, said people familiar with the developments.
Petter Ølberg, Chair of the General Council, has informed WTO members that he has “detected convergence to initiate the appointment process for the next Director-General earlier than anticipated.” As reported earlier, the best interests of the organization, or at least those of Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, are to get the re-nomination process far along before the arrival of a re-elected President Donald Trump. The DG's current term expires 31 August 2025.
The G20 foreign ministers meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly joined the call for reform of the World Trade Organization, including its dispute settlement system. In a statement issued following their meeting, the minister expressed the necessity “to work towards necessary reform of the World Trade Organization to improve all its functions, so that it can become more responsive and resilient in addressing current trade challenges.”
The chair of the World Trade Organization’s General Council said that his consultations with members “so far shows overwhelming support to commence the appointment process” of the incumbent Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
After blocking a first request in July, the trade body finally agreed to establish a dispute panel to review Beijing's claim that the US landmark Inflation Reduction Act is discriminates against Chinese products. The Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) agreed at its meeting on 23 September to a request from China for the establishment of a dispute panel to rule on the WTO compatibility of certain tax credits under the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Representatives from the global steel industry called for common emissions measurement methodologies at the WTO’s Public Forum “Despite the constraints of time, the constraints of funds and training, and research and development, I am quite confident that the global steel industry is on track to reduce CO2 emissions, and this will already be visible by 2030 and 2040,” said Edwin Basson, Director General of the World Steel Association.
Attempts to appoint facilitators and small groups by the chair of the World Trade Organization Doha agriculture negotiations have fallen flat because of doubts and suspicions raised over the exclusion of several members from a small group meeting held earlier this month, said people familiar with the discussions. The United States apparently lamented that if members are not able to agree on the process, then how can anything be agreed in the stalled Doha agriculture negotiations, said several people who took part in the meeting.
The ongoing discussions for reforming the World Trade Organization dispute settlement system appear to be Increasingly propelled by the Secretariat and co-convenors instead of member-driven negotiations on several elements of the crucial appeal/review mechanism, according to people familiar with the developments. The proposed appeal/review mechanism could displace the binding Appellate Body and thereby "turn the enforcement function into a vegetable," said people who are involved in the discussions.
Participating members in the Dialogue on Plastics Pollution and Environmentally Sustainable Plastics Trade (DPP) met on 18 September to advance discussions on two key areas — capacity building for developing members and the potential creation of domestic inventories of trade-related plastic measures.
World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala touted the trade’s “transformative role in reducing poverty and creating shared prosperity – contrary to the currently fashionable notion that trade institutions like the WTO, have not been good for good for poverty or for poor countries, and are creating a more unequal world.” The report outlines several major findings, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive strategy that integrates open trade with supportive domestic policies to make trade more inclusive.
The chair for the World Trade Organization’s fisheries subsidies negotiations says that members “are almost there” on concluding a deal to address subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing “before the end of the year.” But in a five-page report emailed to Heads of Delegation on Monday and seen by WTD, Chair Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson of Iceland, acknowledged that “one member is calling for a fundamentally different approach”. That one member is India.
China has inveighed against US trade policy, calling Washington “a destroyer” to the multilateral trading system,” including the World Trade Organization - in a report on US compliance with the WTO. The 64-page report titled “2024 Report on WTO Compliance of the United States,” and issued by the Chinese commerce ministry yesterday, coincides with the ongoing WTO Public Forum that began early this week. At the Public Forum, China showcased how its rapid green transition could help address climate mitigation.
Global trade continues to face choppy waters due to rising geopolitical tensions, ongoing regional conflicts, shifting monetary policies in industrialized economies like the United States and falling export orders, according to the World Trade Organization’s trade barometer released last week. On a more positive note is a recovery in goods trade during the third quarter of 2024 after demand for traded goods stalled in 2023 when the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to fight inflation, the trade barometer suggested. Issued ahead of the WTO’s annual Public Forum – a major public relations event taking place next week – the goods trade barometer put the latest index value at 103.
As members of the World Trade Organization leave for a summer break, they remain uncertain whether an agreement can be reached on dispute settlement reform including a binding appeal/review mechanism by the end of this year, said people familiar with the developments.
Many members of the ongoing Joint Statement Initiative on Electronic Commerce negotiations appear to have welcomed the “stabilized” text issued by the co-convenors at the World Trade Organization last week, although not the United States.
The Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) is seeking public comments to assist the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in the preparation of its annual reports to Congress on China’s and Russia's compliance with their obligations as Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This notice includes the schedule for the submission of comments to the TPSC for the China and Russia reports and a public hearing.
Members of the World Trade Organization have ended the first half of this year on a somber note of failure, with little or no consensus on any of the targeted negotiations, including disciplines on fisheries subsidies that led to the depletion of global fish stocks. Members failed to find a way forward on a planned second phase of disciplines on subsidies contributing to overcapacity and over fishing during a two-day meeting of the General Council that ended Tuesday.
In an opinion piece published by his current employer Akin Gump, former WTO trade official Alan Yanovich considers the forum's prospects under a return of Trump Administration policies. Despite formidable challenges, Yanovich contends the institution has a shot at survival. "The best-case scenario that can be expected from a second Trump administration is benign neglect and even that is not the only plausible scenario," he writes. With no leverage or traction in trade relations with the U.S., supporters of the body will continue to rely on the WTO for purposes beyond dealing with Washington.
