GLOBE Webinar: Transatlantic cooperation on WTO reform: challenges and opportunities for MC12

The multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its centre, is in its deepest crisis since the WTO’s creation more than a quarter of a century ago. Increasing trade tensions between key WTO Members, the Appellate Body crisis, and trade-related implications of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have amplified the need to update and reform the WTO. Key issues that need to be considered for reform are the WTO’s dispute settlement procedure, the Special and Differential Treatment regime, the functioning of the WTO's regular bodies and committees as well as the notification and transparency disciplines under existing WTO agreements. Moreover, the WTO ‘rulebook’ needs to be updated in areas such as e-commerce, ‘trade and climate’, ‘trade and health’ and agriculture.

As key WTO Members, the EU and the US are crucial players in this reform process. The EU has already outlined a comprehensive proposal for WTO reform in the context of its 2021 Trade Policy Review and both the EU and the US have made (jointly) various submissions on specific topics of WTO reform. During the last EU-US Trade and Technology Council on 16 May 2022 in Paris, the leaders of both the EU and the US acknowedged the importance of the multilateral rules-based system and the need to reform the WTO.

It is expected that the WTO Members will launch a WTO reform process (e.g. a Working Group) at the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) taking place 12-15 June 2022 in Geneva. This webinar discusses the key priorities and challenges for this WTO reform process with two leading experts in WTO law and policy from both sides of the Atlantic: Mr. Ignacio Garcia Bercero (European Commission) and Prof. Kathleen Claussen (University of Miami School of Law). In particular, this webinar discusses the key differences between the various reform proposals from the EU and the US, and how they might be reconciled.