Systemic Challenges To Global Trade Governance No Way Out?

Abstract

The short paper sets out to interrogate the major, hydra-headed challenges the world trading order faces from within and without. A good place to begin is with the long list of severe institutional challenges now apparent, which include: institutionalized protectionism sanctioned by WTO rules and the rise of anti-dumping filing by the global South, the decline in the use of the WTO’s dispute resolution, the primary interface between law and governance; the geopolitical shift of titanic proportions from the incipient world ambition of China’s global infrastructural project – The New Silk Road and Belt to remake the world order in its image. If all of the foregoing weren’t enough for a splitting migraine headache, the latest threat comes from the erratic, demagogue Trump, who has told the world media that he is going to ignore any unfavorable ruling by the WTO that stands in the way of making the US ‘great again’. So faced with an impossibly complex list of contentious issues – is there a way forward?