Are there still shared values to sustain multilateralism? Discourse in World Trade Organization reform debates

ABSTRACT

What is the role of values and principles in sustaining and reforming trade multilateralism? After several years of crisis and gridlock, by the end of 2018 the reform process became a central issue at World Trade Organization (WTO) discussions. Whereas members agreed on the idea that WTO reform was a necessary condition for the preservation of trade multilateralism, whether and how that reform is still possible is uncertain. While the discrepancies in the positions among the proposals have been considered in several papers, the role of the values and principles behind them has been overlooked. In this paper, recalling Ruggie’s theory on multilateralism, I propose to identify whether in the reform debates countries still share a core of principles and values that could sustain trade multilateralism and move the WTO beyond its current paralysis. To do so, I use evidence based on a data set of coded statements of WTO members at the General Council meetings in the period 2019–2020. The paper shows that, although sharing a willingness to support multilateralism, members diverge in the values and principles that give meaning and shape to this type of international cooperation, challenging the capacity of the WTO to find its way through the reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Multilateralism
• values
• World Trade Organization
• WTO reform
• international organisation
• international trade governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding information

This work was supported by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina.

Notes on contributorJulieta Zelicovich is Professor of international economics in the Department of International Relations, National University of Rosario (Rosario, Argentina), and a Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina. Her primary research interests are international trade global governance, regional integration and Argentinean foreign policy. Her latest publications discuss the changes and crisis of the World Trade Organization and its effects on developing countries’ trade policy. She holds a PhD in international relations from the National University of Rosario, Argentina.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8524-9002

Notes

1 It has been asserted that the choice of a multilateral cooperative strategy also depends on the configuration of international power, on the interests in a certain area of issues, on national preferences and on the strategies of the other actors regarding multilateralism or bilateralism (Martin 1993; Doran 2010).

2 In the General Council meeting of October 2018, all the members mentioned some aspect of the process of reform and the issues within it (Zelicovich 2020).

3 For example, multilateralism and its crisis became frequent topics at journals such as Foreign Affairs and Project Syndicate.

4 Minutes of meeting WT/GC/M/176 (February 2019); WT/GC/M/177 (May 2019); WT/GC/M/178 (May 2019); WT/GC/M/179 (July 2019); WT/GC/M/180 (October 2019); WT/GC/M/181 (December 2019); WT/GC/M/182 (March 2020); and WT/GC/M/183 (May 2020).

5 In September 2020, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff made a speech in which he identified 13 values inherent in the WTO: reciprocity, international cooperation, the rule of law, well-being, equality, sovereignty, development, market forces, convergence, sustainability, morality, ­universality, stability and peace, in addition, he included three “underlying values”: preference for openness for global trade; balanced results and trust (Wolff 2020).

6 To be successful, this scenario will have to deal with the decision-making trilemma described by Baldwin (2018) and the dispute solving mechanism outreach.