WTO Chief Praises Hard Effort’ Despite Lack of Agreement at Yaounde Talks
Experts say that the WTO’s failure to establish meaningful agreements during high-level talks in Yaounde demonstrates its incapacity to adapt to a new reality of fragmented global trade, putting a return to multilateralism at risk.
The World Trade Organization’s 14th ministerial summit ended in the early hours of Monday morning with no breakthroughs on important agricultural issues or much-needed organisational restructuring.
The failure to achieve an agreement also allowed a crucial prohibition on cross-border digital broadcasts, which had been in place since 1998, to lapse. The meeting, which was originally slated to end at lunchtime Sunday, ended “in chaos and confusion,” according to the NGO network Our World Is Not For Sale in Yaounde.
Even participants from countries on the perimeter of the negotiations expressed confusion in the hallways of the Cameroonian capital’s convention center on Sunday about the many meeting postponements.
The WTO is badly undermined by geopolitical tensions, stalled negotiations, and increased protectionism. It is further hampered by a regulation demanding unanimous consensus for all decisions and a crippled judicial arm.
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