WTO Needs to Narrow Focus to Survive, Law Professor Says
The World Trade Organization is responsible for too many agreements, leading to fracturing coalitions and insufficient oversight, University of Arizona law professor Bashar Malkawi said in an International Economic Law and Policy Blog guest post. For the trade body to "survive as a meaningful entity," member nations should be willing to largely ditch the "consensus style of negotiations and agreements" and embrace a system operating largely under majority or super-majority votes, Malkawi suggested.
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As the WTO undergoes reform talks (see 2306130036), countries should return "to the basics" of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade instead of tacking more issues onto the trade body's plate, Malkawi said. "There is a need to offload some trade 'related' issues," he said. "Unless there is a radical shift in the thinking of policymakers, we risk further damaging and perhaps breaking the WTO system, or simply making it irrelevant."
The Appellate Body was "paralyzed" by the U.S. in 2019 partially due to its embrace of precedents despite there being no "formal requirement of the use of precedent," the professor said. The EU and others have embraced the Multiparty Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement as an alternative (see 2303060025), though Malkawi sees this as "at best a temporary fix," given that most members don't participate. The "deeper" problem within the dispute settlement system is "[s]imply, there are too many agreements for which the WTO is given responsibility," Malkawi said.