Outside In | Asia-Pacific needs the WTO to stay relevant in an increasingly uncertain world
- Bilateral negotiations never favour smaller economies and losing the WTO’s multilateral dispute settlement channel would be a major loss for the Asia-Pacific. We cannot afford to take the WTO for granted, weakened as it is and in sore need of reforms.
To walk along the autumn shoreline of Lake Geneva to the headquarters of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), kicking fallen conkers from horse chestnut trees, is to occupy a steady, constant world light years away from the conflicts and challenges addressed by the many United Nations institutions settled there for the past 70 years.
The last time I was there was 25 years ago, in the frenzied final days of negotiation on the Uruguay Round of trade liberalisation that created the WTO.
Of course, the Swiss sense of frenzy will always have a different heartbeat from the frenzy we might feel in other parts of the world, but it was noticeably frenzied nevertheless, and a high watermark of commitment to multilateralism and support for trade and investment liberalisation.
Twenty-five years later, Geneva’s tranquillising autumnal calm is as therapeutic as ever, but the mood is darker, and the innocent optimism of the Uruguay Round negotiators has ebbed.