Industry Professor Jane Drake-Brockman, Institute for International Trade, The University of Adelaide and Founding Director of the Australian Services Roundtable, writes for the Council on Economic Policies (CEP) on what the recent success multilateral services trade facilitation success means for the World Trade Organization.
The building on Lake Geneva which houses the WTO stands as the symbol of the multilateral trading system and the bastion of global non-discrimination in trade governance. Meetings held under WTO auspices, whether physical or virtual, attract global participation by all trading partners. No other institution, and no other location, provides such a venue.
Recent frantic activity inside the WTO building, sadly last week without political decision-makers at Ministerial level, has managed nevertheless to magic up some valuable concrete outcomes