In late February, 4,000 delegates from 164 countries gathered in Abu Dhabi for the most important decision-making meeting for the World Trade Organization. The international organization faces a long list of thorny issues: some long-lasting, like dispute settlement mechanisms and agriculture subsidies, and some novel, like AI and data governance in global trade.
Ministers met for four days, then gave themselves a two-day extension. There were some meaningful achievements, like an agreement to facilitate foreign direct investment into developing countries. But ministers largely agreed to keep talking, ahead of future meetings. Unfortunately, there was no discussion of AI or how to use data, two of today’s hottest topics.
The result of the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) was far from the comprehensive reform package that WTO watchers, like myself, think the trade body desperately needs to keep functioning and respond to the pressing needs of today’s global market. And it’s a disappointing result after two years of hard work since the previous ministerial conference in June 2022, and months of intense negotiations leading up to Abu Dhabi.
Trade officials may shrug their shoulders and start planning for the next ministerial conference in Cameroon in two years’ time. But that would be wrong. The failure of MC-13 shows that the WTO is gradually becoming detached from the real world of trade.
Negotiations to adopt new norms for the digital economy have reached a deadlock. The guidelines around cross-border data transfers and server localization are still fuzzy. Assessing the repercussions of generative AI hasn’t even begun.
Take global supply chain restructuring, as countries pursue “friendshoring” and “onshoring” agendas. It’s become an important agenda item for many governments, pursuing both legitimate and dubious policy objectives.
And yet the WTO has stayed silent on this fundamental issue of global trade, despite…