IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/worlde/v41y2018i10p2578-2598.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The WTO in Buenos Aires: The outcome and its significance for the future of the multilateral trading system

Author

Listed:
  • Erin Hannah
  • James Scott
  • Rorden Wilkinson

Abstract

The conclusion of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Buenos Aires ministerial conference (10–13 December 2017) was immediately celebrated and derided in equal measure. For its supporters, Buenos Aires opened the way toward negotiations in e‐commerce, investment facilitation for development, and measures designed to help micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs). For its detractors, the meeting underscored the gridlock that continues to blight the WTO’s negotiating function and underlined the organisation's declining credibility as a mechanism for governing global trade. In this paper we provide one of the first full length critical evaluations of the Buenos Aires conference and its outcome. In so doing, we offer answers to three questions. What accounts for such dramatically different assessments of the meeting's outcome? How should the outcome be interpreted? What is its significance for the future of the WTO and the multilateral trading system? We argue that the meeting's outcome was indeed significant. It has consolidated the process of reconfiguring the WTO‘s negotiating function; and it enables members to tackle more effectively a range of pressing economic and social issues as well as to navigate blockers and blockages in the negotiations. However, it also poses challenges for the WTO‘s poorest constituents.

Suggested Citation

  • Erin Hannah & James Scott & Rorden Wilkinson, 2018. "The WTO in Buenos Aires: The outcome and its significance for the future of the multilateral trading system," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 2578-2598, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:41:y:2018:i:10:p:2578-2598
    DOI: 10.1111/twec.12657
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12657
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/twec.12657?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chad P. Bown, 2017. "Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Solar: Trump's Stealth Trade Protection," Policy Briefs PB17-21, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    2. Rorden Wilkinson & Erin Hannah & James Scott, 2016. "The WTO in Nairobi: The Demise of the Doha Development Agenda and the Future of the Multilateral Trading System," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(2), pages 247-255, May.
    3. Shaffer, Gregory & Winters, L. Alan, 2017. "FTA Law in WTO Dispute Settlement: Peru–Additional Duty and the Fragmentation of Trade Law," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 303-326, April.
    4. Trommer, Silke, 2017. "The WTO in an Era of Preferential Trade Agreements: Thick and Thin Institutions in Global Trade Governance," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 501-526, July.
    5. Rorden Wilkinson & Erin Hannah & James Scott, 2014. "The WTO in Bali - What MC9 means for the Doha Development Agenda and why it matters?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 19414, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    6. Hannah, Erin & Scott, James & Wilkinson, Rorden, 2017. "Reforming WTO-Civil Society Engagement," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 427-448, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pier Luigi Sacco & Alex Arenas & Manlio De Domenico, 2022. "The resilience of the multirelational structure of geopolitical treaties is critically linked to past colonial world order and offshore fiscal havens," Papers 2203.00618, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Flentø, Daniel & Ponte, Stefano, 2017. "Least-Developed Countries in a World of Global Value Chains: Are WTO Trade Negotiations Helping?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 366-374.
    2. Ellen Johnson & Anne Marie Thow & Nicholas Nisbett, 2023. "Opportunities to strengthen trade policy for food and nutrition security: an analysis of two agricultural trade policy decisions," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 15(4), pages 1109-1125, August.
    3. Kenta Hirami, 2020. "FTAs in WTO Dispute Settlement," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 16(5), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Rorden Wilkinson & Erin Hannah & James Scott, 2016. "The WTO in Nairobi: The Demise of the Doha Development Agenda and the Future of the Multilateral Trading System," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7(2), pages 247-255, May.
    5. Matias E. Margulis, 2023. "Backdoor Bargaining: How the European Union Navigates the Food Aid Regime Complex," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(2), pages 29-38.
    6. repec:nbb:ecrart:y:2017:m:september:i:iii:p:7-34 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Manfred Elsig & Sebastian Klotz, 2021. "Digital Trade Rules in Preferential Trade Agreements: Is There a WTO Impact?," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(S4), pages 25-36, May.
    8. Stephen, Matthew D. & Parízek, Michal, 2019. "New Powers and the Distribution of Preferences in Global Trade Governance: From Deadlock and Drift to Fragmentation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 24(6), pages 735-758.
    9. N. Cordemans & C. Duprez & k. Kikkawa, 2018. "America’s new trade policy and its impact on the Belgian economy," Economic Review, National Bank of Belgium, issue iii, pages 7-34, september.
    10. Lijuan Yang, 2023. "Recommendations for metaverse governance based on technical standards," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    11. Marcus Noland, 2018. "US Trade Policy in the Trump Administration," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 13(2), pages 262-278, July.
    12. Humoud Alsabah & Benjamin Bernard & Agostino Capponi & Garud Iyengar & Jay Sethuraman, 2021. "Multiregional Oligopoly with Capacity Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4789-4808, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:worlde:v:41:y:2018:i:10:p:2578-2598. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0378-5920 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.