In Geneva this week for the WTO Public Forum, John Denton met with WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the B20 Italy to make known global business priorities to make trade work for people and planet -- including a call to reach a deal to end fishing subsidies and the launch on Tuesday of a set of 27 recommendations for reforming the WTO. John was also cited in this Bloomberg piece supporting Dr. Ngozi’s efforts to carry out her forward-looking agenda.

Twenty-five years after its creation, the WTO remains the most important forum for creating modern trade rules, providing transparency for government actions that promote and hinder trade, and resolving disputes between Member States.

However, the WTO is in need of reform and new rules must be written to ensure it continues to serve the needs of businesses—the ultimate end-users of the global trading system.

This paper sets out 27 concrete recommendations, under five key priority areas, that the global business community would like Member States to address at the upcoming Ministerial Conference (MC12) and build into a work program over the next few years.

Updating the WTO’s “operating system”, meaningfully dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and broader public health issues, creating trade rules to promote environmental sustainability, updating the “rulebook” to take account of the modern digital economy, as well as making trade as inclusive as possible would not only serve business interests but also broader expectations from citizens and civil society.

Recommendations are drawn from extensive consultations from the International Chamber of Commerce’s business network across all continents and all levels of development—provide a roadmap for an ambitious, yet realistic, revitalization of the WTO that would make the multilateral trading system better work for people and for the planet.

The following 27 concrete recommendations—drawn from extensive consultations from the International Chamber of Commerce’s business network across all continents and all levels of development provide a roadmap for an ambitious, yet realistic, revitalization of the WTO that would make the multilateral trading system better work for people and for the planet.

WTO Reform

1. Agree on a coherent holistic vision for WTO reform.
2. Put market access back on the agenda.
3. Agree on a path forward to improving the negotiation function.
4. Adopt a new evidence-based approach to Special and Differential Treatment.
5. Agree on a path forward for reforming the dispute settlement system.
6. Promote full compliance with and improvements to the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).
7. Improve the Secretariat’s capacity to monitor trade policy developments
8. Create a crisis management protocol for future crises.
9. Create a business advisory council and a civil society council.

Trade and health

10. Ensure trade policies facilitate vaccine manufacturing and distribution.
11. Creation of a Health Market Information System.
12. Adopt cooperative ways to speed up vaccine production.
13. Adopt and go beyond the Trade and Health Initiative.

Trade and environmental sustainability

14. Finalize the fisheries subsidies negotiations
15. Agree to a formal roadmap to address specific issues on trade and environmental sustainability.
16. Develop a package of recommendations on trade and the circular economy.
17. Deal with carbon leakage in a multilateral way.

Trade and the digital economy

18. Accelerate the e-commerce negotiations.
19. Develop market access provisions for the digital economy.
20. Make permanent the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions.
21. Create an enabling legal environment for paperless trade.
22. Finalize negotiations for the JSI on Services Domestic Regulation.

Trade and inclusivity

23. Identify new areas for rulemaking based on best practice from bilateral and regional trade agreements.
24. Adopt the full package of recommendations of the MSME group.
25. Commit not to impose export restrictions on humanitarian aid.
26. Adopt a declaration with concrete and measurable proposals to advance trade and Women’s economic empowerment.
27. Launch discussions on the negative impact of illicit trade.

Get the document:

https://iccwbo.org/content/uploads/sites/3/2021/09/icc-document-wto-policy-paper.pdf