Posted on Oct 15, 2021 4:58 PM
The attitude is more constructive. While looming at the end of November, a ministerial meeting of 164 member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States intends to play its part.
In a speech to the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva on Thursday, US Secretary of Commerce Katherine Tai affirmed “the United States’ continued commitment to the WTO.” The rhetoric is radically different from the previous Trump administration more inclined to block the activity of the dispute settlement system and its appeals court by opposing the replacement of judges.
On this specific level, Katherine Tai is more pragmatic. “Reforming dispute settlement is not about restoring the Appellate Body for itself, or going back to what it was before,” she warned. Over time, dispute settlements have given rise to documentary inflation. “In the beginning, a typical panel or Appellate Body report was 20 or 30 pages long. Twenty years later, reports of some of the most important cases have exceeded 1,000 pages. They symbolize what the system has become: heavy and bureaucratic, ”she regrets.
The WTO is not a tribunal
In addition, decisions take too long. How can we deal with a system where it took more than fifteen years to resolve the Airbus Boeing conflict? “Now we can ask ourselves: is a system that takes 16 years to find a solution ‘fully operational’? “.
And along the way, we created strains and pressures that distorted the development of the dispute settlement system.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now ask: is a system that requires 16 years to find a solution “fully functioning?”
— Ambassador Katherine Tai (@AmbassadorTai) October 14, 2021
Another reproach: the American administration is annoyed by the fact that the legal system of the WTO leads to a case law. For Washington, the WTO is not a tribunal but only a forum intended to find a compromise on a particular file. “It is revealing that over time, + dispute resolution + has become synonymous with litigation,” said Katherine Tai, noting that litigation never ends and is “expensive”.
In his eyes, the goal is not to punish each other; the goal, in fine, “is to create the conditions for the two members to come together to find a compromise”. A point of view that does not necessarily share the European member countries who are more willing to establish binding legal rules for all members. This is not Washington’s approach and discussions promise to be tough in Geneva.
Expected progress
“We believe that we can succeed in reforming […] if we create a more flexible WTO, if we change the way we approach problems collectively, […] and if we restore the deliberative function of the organization, ”stressed the secretary of commerce. “I am delighted to hear that Katherine Tai delivered a speech strongly supporting the need for the WTO to reform to assume its role of supporting the multilateral trading system,” commented WTO Director Ngozi Okonjo in the process. -Iweala, who was in Washington.
I read with interest statement made y’day by USTR Katherine Tai & welcome her willingness to engage with proponents of temporary waiver of TRIPS Agreement to help in combatting COVID19 pandemic: Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (in file pic) pic.twitter.com/K3ix00riAL
– ANI (@ANI) May 7, 2021
The first results are expected at the end of November during this ministerial meeting at the Organization’s headquarters. Subsidies promoting overfishing, intellectual property rights on vaccines, trade facilitation, discussions have accelerated in recent months. “Several proposals relating to trade and health should be able to achieve consensus over the next month and a half,” conceded the Secretary of Commerce. But the substantive reform of the WTO will have to wait a little longer.
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