WTO Rules { 143 images } Created 9 Aug 2019
WTO Rules
Or rather it doesn’t. The World trade Organization (OMC in French) is in crisis. While it’s supposed to regulate 98% of international trade, between its 164 country members – i.e. just about everyone – it has totally failed to update rules mostly fixed prior to its 1995 creation, in a world prior to substantial global supply chains, the use of the internet to drive trade, or the emergence of China as a major player in the global system. The Doha round of talks started in 2001, are stalled, dead in the water. Meanwhile the appellate body – the part of the WTO that’s supposed to adjudicate trade disputes, is on its knees, running out of judges, with all new appointments being blocked by the USA, which is turning to a brute power to leverage trade, as opposed to the multilateral rules based system that the WTO stands for.
Headquartered in Geneva, down the hill from the UN by the shore of Lake Geneva, its home to 630 staff and receives many diplomats who are accredited specifically to the institution (as opposed to the UN), some of them – such as the Russians having completely separate Missions to the WTO. Its functioning is opaque – its main bodies operating behind closed doors, from which the press is locked out the moment the discussions - sometimes extremely heated, begin.
Into all of this the UK is suddenly thrown. The idea that it would be able to function post hard-Brexit under WTO rules, becomes more far-fetched the closer one gets to the details. It’s all very well for the UK to break away from the EU group (under whose umbrella the British have operated at the WTO until recently) and post its own schedules of tariffs and quotas. It’s quite another for the 163 other members to unanimously agree to them. The relatively smaller size of the British economy compared with that of the EU, giving it that much less bargaining to persuade other countries to accept its tariffs.
Only when this is all sorted out could the UK begin trading under WTO Rules – and this in a world where WTO rules no longer rule …
"It's not going to be the end of the world in the sense that trade is going to stop and that everything is going to fall down," the WTO's director general, Roberto Azevedo, told BBC News last year.
"But it's not going to be a walk in the park either." This from the man who’s supposed to sing the WTO’s praises.
The UK is in the process of attempting to ‘roll-over’ existing EU arrangements at the WTO with individual countries to apply to the UK on its own. As of 1st September, 2019 a number of deals have been signed, and while they include Denmark and South Korea, the Faroe Islands and Leichtenstein figure among the grand total of 13 arrangements. Switzerland is the largest partner of the UK to have signed an agreement, but it only just squeezes in at number 10 in the top ten partners, way behind many individual members of EU, such as Germany, France, Italy or Spain …
Or rather it doesn’t. The World trade Organization (OMC in French) is in crisis. While it’s supposed to regulate 98% of international trade, between its 164 country members – i.e. just about everyone – it has totally failed to update rules mostly fixed prior to its 1995 creation, in a world prior to substantial global supply chains, the use of the internet to drive trade, or the emergence of China as a major player in the global system. The Doha round of talks started in 2001, are stalled, dead in the water. Meanwhile the appellate body – the part of the WTO that’s supposed to adjudicate trade disputes, is on its knees, running out of judges, with all new appointments being blocked by the USA, which is turning to a brute power to leverage trade, as opposed to the multilateral rules based system that the WTO stands for.
Headquartered in Geneva, down the hill from the UN by the shore of Lake Geneva, its home to 630 staff and receives many diplomats who are accredited specifically to the institution (as opposed to the UN), some of them – such as the Russians having completely separate Missions to the WTO. Its functioning is opaque – its main bodies operating behind closed doors, from which the press is locked out the moment the discussions - sometimes extremely heated, begin.
Into all of this the UK is suddenly thrown. The idea that it would be able to function post hard-Brexit under WTO rules, becomes more far-fetched the closer one gets to the details. It’s all very well for the UK to break away from the EU group (under whose umbrella the British have operated at the WTO until recently) and post its own schedules of tariffs and quotas. It’s quite another for the 163 other members to unanimously agree to them. The relatively smaller size of the British economy compared with that of the EU, giving it that much less bargaining to persuade other countries to accept its tariffs.
Only when this is all sorted out could the UK begin trading under WTO Rules – and this in a world where WTO rules no longer rule …
"It's not going to be the end of the world in the sense that trade is going to stop and that everything is going to fall down," the WTO's director general, Roberto Azevedo, told BBC News last year.
"But it's not going to be a walk in the park either." This from the man who’s supposed to sing the WTO’s praises.
The UK is in the process of attempting to ‘roll-over’ existing EU arrangements at the WTO with individual countries to apply to the UK on its own. As of 1st September, 2019 a number of deals have been signed, and while they include Denmark and South Korea, the Faroe Islands and Leichtenstein figure among the grand total of 13 arrangements. Switzerland is the largest partner of the UK to have signed an agreement, but it only just squeezes in at number 10 in the top ten partners, way behind many individual members of EU, such as Germany, France, Italy or Spain …
