Redesigning the World Trade Organization for the Twenty-first Century

2. Reinvigorating Debate on WTO Reform: The Contours of a Functional and Normative Approach to Analyzing the WTO System

11 2 Reinvigorating Debate on WTO Reform: The Contours of a Functional and Normative Approach to Analyzing the WTO System CAROLYN DEERE BIRKBECK1 I. Introduction The debate on institutional reform and governance of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has now been underway for over 15 years.2 In 1999, only five years after the creation of the WTO, the collapse of the Seattle Ministerial Conference provoked intense demands for reform. By 2003, the failure of the Cancun WTO Ministerial Meeting again sparked debate on WTO reform. Two years later, when Pascal Lamy became WTO Director-General, he proposed that WTO reform should be a key post-Doha priority.3 In the context of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations stumbling forward in fits and starts, the most prominent focus of discussions of WTO reform has been options for improving the WTO negotiation process. Throughout the past 10 years there have also been a number of broader debates about the governance of the multilateral trading system and calls for institutional reform at the WTO. Most recently, the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 reignited more wide-ranging interest in the role of the WTO in global economic management, prompting calls for the WTO to do more to sustain a global open trading system,and in particular to take greater leadership on issues of trade finance, aid for trade, and surveillance of protectionist measures. In the face of existing and emerging global challenges, both critics and supporters of the WTO pose common questions. Is the WTO as we currently know it fit for its purpose? How can the WTO adapt to changing configurations of economic power in trade, while ensuring the weakest countries are properly and effectively represented? How can the WTO better respond to sustainable development concerns, ranging from poverty reduction, development, and food security, to sustainable fisheries and climate change? Is the WTO’s current institutional form appropriate or,are there reforms—incremental,fundamental, or both—that would better equip the WTO to reflect and address both contemporary needs and those likely to emerge in the future? Amid a growing body of scholarly literature and policy commentary on the governance and institutional reform of the WTO, this chapter proposes a distinctive approach. To set the context, Part II presents a brief overview of key themes in the existing literature, emphasizing the scope of debates on WTO reform.A full review and evaluation of the specific details of proposals offered through the course of these debates is beyond the scope of this chapter. This chapter does, however, highlight the differences among authors regarding what the WTO reform debate is and should be about, including with respect to the feasibility and desirability of a reform agenda. Part III proposes a new fivepronged approach to the question of WTO reform. It argues for (1) analyzing the WTO as a ‘system’; (2) disaggregating and analyzing the governance of each of the functions this system serves and should serve; (3) acknowledging the informal nature and dynamism of many practices regarding the governance of these distinctive WTO functions; (4) grounding reform proposals in clear normative principles and priorities, namely to respond to the needs of developing countries and advancing sustainable development; and (5) devoting greater attention to analyzing the political strategies for achieving proposed reforms. The chapter concludes with some preliminary observations on the reform priorities this approach reveals.4 It provides indicative examples of how this approach to the WTO reform question yields the prospect of a more broadranging reform agenda than many existing studies, and a reinvigorated dialogue on many now ‘tired’ reform themes. II. Existing Literature on WTO Reform: The State of Debate The study of WTO governance is concerned with the set of processes, principles , norms, and institutions through which rules and practices for managing global trade are generated and implemented. The study of institutional reform of the WTO relates to a subset of these concerns—those specifically focused on the ‘institutional’ aspects of the WTO. Narrowly speaking, these institutional aspects concern only the formal organizational facets of the WTO.More broadly, reference to the institutional aspects of the WTO may also apply to the cultural habits, practices, rules, and procedures that govern how the work of the WTO is supervised, managed, and implemented. Depending on the topic at hand, 12 Part I Why Institutional Reform Is Necessary authors writing on ‘WTO reform’ sometimes refer explicitly to...