Speaking at a conference on global trade held at Chatham House, London, on 14 October, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff said that at a time of slowing global economic growth and political uncertainty the WTO is even more essential, with its rules providing fairness and preventing (...)
Online registration is now open for a conference to be held on 27 November 2019 at the WTO to mark the 30th anniversary of the WTO’s Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The conference will focus on the role of the TPRM in providing enhanced transparency, accountability and monitoring of the (...)
WTO members agreed at a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) on 14 October to authorize the United States to impose countermeasures on European Union goods and services trade with the US up to a value of USD 7,496.623 million annually. The authorization was granted in line with a WTO (...)
At a meeting of the full WTO membership on 14 October, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo observed that members had barely two months left to solve the Appellate Body impasse and meet a negotiating deadline on fisheries subsidies. Looking ahead, he said that in order to lay the groundwork for (...)
A WTO publication on policies implemented by governments to help labour markets adjust to globalization was launched at the Public Forum on 11 October. It examines case studies on labour adjustment programmes and provides an extensive review of literature on this topic to highlight how (...)
What is the value of electronic commerce trade, and how much of that is being traded digitally? How can the impact of non-trade barriers be measured? Is trade data increasingly kept behind pay walls? These and other issues were addressed at a Public Forum seminar on 11 October where (...)
At the 2019 WTO Public Forum, many discussions focused on how to adapt to a new trading environment marked by the growing importance of services, the most dynamic component of international trade. The four-day event from 8 to 11 October highlighted the important role services play in increasing (...)
In an informal session of the Trade Negotiations Committee dedicated to fisheries subsidies, facilitators held consultations open to all WTO members on 10-11 October, as part of a week-long cluster of meetings to move the talks on fisheries subsidies forward. During the facilitator-led (...)
Speaking at a session on “Trade for peace through WTO accessions” at the Public Forum on 9 October, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff said the enthusiasm of newly acceding countries for using WTO membership as a peacebuilding instrument “is a reason for optimism” at a time of uncertainty for world (...)