Making Plurilateral Initiatives Work for All: Reforming the WTO Through Inclusive and Development-friendly Approaches

Policy Brief 2023 M. Sait Akman, Bozkurt Aran, Axel Berger, Carlos Primo, Rajeev Kher, Douglas Lippoldt, Stormy-Annika Mildner, , Claudia Schmucker, Maarten Smeets

This Policy Brief was first published in https://t20ind.org

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Updating the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules has become imperative to address pressing global issues such as food security, pandemic responses, climate and the environment, and emerging areas in services trade. Plurilateral agreements can be a viable option where achieving multilateral consensus in the WTO is difficult. To ensure that they advance the multilateral trading system, plurilaterals should follow an inclusive and development-friendly framework. They should have a layered architecture of rights and obligations and encompass capacity-building measures. WTO members should initiate plurilaterals on topics that are of particular concern to developing countries and least developed countries, and can help achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The G20 can play a decisive role in fostering mutual understanding on plurilaterals, for example by establishing a taskforce on plurilaterals in the G20 Trade and Investment Working Group.