Ten Years of the WTO: A success story of global governance

This paper is part of a series that mark 10 years of the WTO. The paper is supportive of the WTO, arguing that it is the most democratic international body in existence today,and the key to managing a globalising world when democracy remains rooted in the nation-state.

The paper argues that the WTO is a democratic institution because:

• The WTO is not imposed on countries. Countries choose to belong to the WTO
• the WTO's rules are negotiated by member governments, agreed by consensus, and ratified by parliaments
• no other body is as directly run by member governments, or as firmly rooted in consensus decision-making and collective rule.

  The author perceives that two principles underpin the equal rights of WTO members:

  • the principle of non-discrimination:the same rules apply to everyone, even the world’s largest and most powerful economies. An example is the 'most-favoured nation' obligation which prevents WTO members from discriminating between foreign goods, or treating products from one wto member as better than those from another one
  • the principle of consensus decision-making: because no decision is taken unless all member governments agree, effectively every country – from the largest to the smallest – has the power of veto

  The paper concedes that:

  • reforms to the system occur episodically and infrequently
  • not all governments are equipped to participate in WTO processes as effectively as they would like<

  It concludes that:

  • the multilateral trading system gives even the smallest and poorest countries far greater leverage and security than they would ever have outside the system
  • the notion that consensus can – and should – be overruled on basic policy questions is easily the most dangerous idea confronting the WTO
  • the world would be a more dangerous, less democratic place without the WTO