The impetus of multilateral trading system was formed to overcome the outbreak of protectionism in the 1930s and its severe scarring effects. With the expansion of membership over last six decades, it has transformed into the current system, represented by the World Trade Organization. The positive contribution of the WTO in trade liberalization has been well-acknowledged, especially in terms of setting out rule-based global trading system and leading the participation of heterogeneous economies at various development levels in it. According to the WTO, the volume of trade has increased two-and-a-half times since the launch of the WTO. Such explosive increase of global trade is believed to have created better opportunities for faster ecnomic growth, higher levels of job creation, and poverty reduction across countries.
Despite the success and achievements realized so far, the current multilateral trading system has confronted significant challenges. Sluggish progress and repeated delays of the Doha Round negotiations in consequence have failed to provide proper venues to explore new trading rules in a fast-evolving global economic environment. At the same time, the rise of protectionist sentiment and corresponding trade-restrictive actions across countries since the global financial crisis pose another challenge along with slow eeconomic recovery, stagnated trade growth and widening income inequality. In spite of numerous evidence of positive benefits from trade, escalating dissatisfaction towards trade liberalization puts the pursuit of trade liberalization and economic integration on the defensive as populist backlash against trade prevails even among the world’s leading economies.
Notwithstanding such widely-accepted consensus that we need to break the current political stalemate and move forward in pursuit of trade liberalization, the answer to how to elicit international cooperation for it under the current multilateral trading system does not seem so clear.
In this session, we first would like to assess the achievements and the challenges of the multilateral trading system, especially in the context of current economic environment. Then we will explore all the possible options for the changes of the current multilateral trading system and ways to enhance the international cooperation in trade liberalization.
