Besides addressing issues in the dispute settlement system, the emerging framework for WTO reform agenda includes strengthening the work of the organization’s regular bodies as well as negotiating function. This study explores the state of discussions in this regard, as well as the possible interests of developing countries. It covers elements such as transparency in decision-making; strengthening the effectiveness of WTO committee mechanisms; enhanced role of the WTO Secretariat and of the Director General; enhanced civil society participation; creation of a parliamentary dimension, as well as the fulfilment of WTO Ministerial Mandates.
Experience seems to show that whenever there is lack of movement or clear direction in the WTO negotiations internal and external calls for the reform of the organization’s institutional framework grow in resonance. The current impasse in the DDA negotiations has given rise to a reform agenda in the name of the WTO’s legitimacy, order, dynamism and the need to make it more effective. Reports were commissioned in the past by some WTO Directors General which made recommendations to address key institutional challenges. Reasons advanced to support the current WTO reform agenda include that the world has changed in ways that could scarcely have been imagined; the main actors in the global economy are now different; the bulk of the WTO rule book dates back to the Uruguay Round; the WTO needs to adapt; evolution and reinvention have always been part of the multilateral trading system; the need to unlock the DDA negotiating impasse; the WTO membership has grown in number necessitating structural changes; and the need to avoid the growing number of regional and bilateral free trade arrangements, customs unions, common markets, plurilaterals and joint initiatives. Certainly, there is no shortage of reasons to justify and support a WTO reform agenda.
The emerging framework for the reform agenda is to address issues in the WTO dispute settlement system, including the impasse in appointments to the Appellate Body; strengthening the work of the WTO’s regular bodies; and improving the WTO’s negotiating work. This paper will not deal with the first aspect, as this issue has been extensively explored in earlier papers. The scope will instead be strengthening the work of the WTO’s regular bodies and improving the WTO’s negotiating function. The following elements readily fall within that scope; transparency in decision-making; strengthening the effectiveness of WTO committee mechanisms; enhanced role of the WTO Secretariat and of the Director General; enhanced civil society participation; creation of a parliamentary dimension, and the fulfilment of WTO Ministerial Mandates. Some of these elements were raised in the recommendations of the commissioned reports, while others are already subject of proposals tabled in the WTO by both developed and developing countries.
The guiding principle for developing countries in deciding which issues to pursue should be the potential contribution of an issue to making the WTO work better for all, and its contribution to the development of developing countries. However, the reality is that whatever reason a WTO member may choose to come up with to support or oppose the reform agenda, every member will find itself in a position of having to defend or pursue its interest in relation to the issues, and the approaches adopted. Whatever a member’s strategy, some action on its part is required.