- Trade expert argues for hybrid approach as MC14 ends without consensus on WTO reforms
EMELDA MWITWA
Lusaka
WHEN trade ministers gathered in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC14), expectations were modest but hopes remained that some progress could be made on reforming the institution.
Zambia, favouring multilateralism, called for reforms that would make the WTO more inclusive, transparent, efficient and development-oriented.
Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry Chipoka Mulenga, in a statement, said reforms must rebuild trust among members while ensuring that development remains central to the organisation’s mandate.
On the other hand, the United States, European Union (EU) and Japan, among other economic giants, were calling for plurilateral reforms.
However, MC14 ended in stalemate, underscoring the deep divisions over plurilateral reforms – the idea that smaller groups of countries can negotiate binding agreements within the WTO framework.
The debate regarding proposed plurilateral reforms, mostly favoured by economic giants such as the United States and EU, is not new.
Since the Doha Round stalled, many advanced economies have pushed plurilaterals as a pragmatic way forward.
In simple terms, plurilateral trade agreements are like a club within the WTO where a small group of countries agree on specific trade rules. Key features of plurilaterism are flexibility, allowing sub-groups of WTO member countries with similar interests to move faster on specific issues.
In addition, participation is optional as WTO members can choose whether or not to join trade pacts. However, consensus among all WTO members is needed to make the plurilateral agreements part of the WTO system.
On the other hand, the WTO primarily deals with multilateral trade agreements involving all its member countries. The core guiding principle here is consensus decision-making where all 166 member countries come together to set global trade rules.
A seasoned trade and development policy advisor and professor of international negotiations at the International Institute in Geneva (IIG), Rashid Kaukab, says plurilateral initiatives have gained traction largely because consensus under the multilateral system has proved difficult to achieve.
Multilateralism requires agreement from all member countries before trade rules can be established and implemented under the WTO framework.
When consensus is lacking, progress stalls.
“We have not had many multilateral agreements in the WTO since it came into force in 1995. Developed countries are saying, ‘It is difficult to secure agreements with 166 members,’ hence the push for plurilateral reforms,” Professor Kaukab said in an interview.
Plurilateral agreements, he explained, may be implemented by countries party to such agreements outside the WTO framework if multilateral consensus cannot be secured to make them part of the WTO system.
For participating countries, this represents progress, as they are not compelled to wait for universal agreement before implementing trade pacts among them.
African Group guarding against marginalisation
For most of the developing world, especially Africa and India, plurilateral agreements represent a dangerous fragmentation of the multilateral system.
For the African Group, plurilaterals are viewed with suspicion.
“We cannot accept a WTO where rules are written by a few and imposed on the many,” a civil society member from a movement calling itself “Our World is Not for Sale (OWINFS), remarked at a press briefing at MC14 in Yaoundé. OWINFS insists that reforms must prioritise inclusivity, capacity-building, and special and differential treatment (SDT).
Further, African negotiators argue that plurilaterals risk sidelining countries with limited negotiating capacity. They fear that new rules on digital trade or industrial subsidies could lock them out of emerging markets before they have the chance to build domestic industries.
As one Cameroonian official put it, “Development must remain at the heart of the WTO. Otherwise, the institution loses legitimacy.”
US: Pragmatism and power politics
The US has been among the strongest advocates of plurilateral reforms. They see them as a way to bypass the paralysis of consensus-based negotiations.
Their focus is on enforceable rules in areas like digital trade, industrial subsidies and transparency – issues that directly touch on its rivalry with China.
Observers say by pushing plurilaterals, the US hopes to set standards that reflect its commercial interests and values, even if not all WTO members are ready to sign on.
Critics, however, see this as an attempt to reshape the WTO into a tool of geopolitical competition. For African and Indian negotiators, the US approach risks creating a twotier system where powerful economies dictate terms.
On similar standing, the OWINFS movement is against plurilateral reforms, saying this would legitimise an organisation based on power, not rules.
They also argue that this would strip WTO of its nondiscrimination principle for international trade.
“…This will allow a few powerful players to dominate decision-making and facilitate plurilateral deals among clubs of countries, dictated by power politics and coercive tactics,” OWINFS said in a statement signed by 48 organisations from around the world.
China: Defensive and development-oriented China’s position is complex.
On the one hand, Beijing resists plurilaterals that it perceives as discriminatory or designed to isolate its trade practices.
On the other, it emphasises development-oriented outcomes and insists on consensus-based decision-making.
“Rules must be fair and inclusive,” a Chinese delegate argued. For China, plurilaterals threaten to undermine the principle of equal participation.
India: Strongest opponentIndia has emerged as the most vocal opponent of plurilaterals.
They view them as exclusionary and contrary to the spirit of multilateralism. Its priority remains food security and agricultural subsidies.
“Plurilaterals will create a WTO of the few, not the many,” India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal warned in Yaoundé.
Mr Goyal said that all WTO members must have a fair opportunity to build productive capacity, create employment and participate meaningfully in global trade. For India, the danger is not just marginalisation but the erosion of the multilateralsystem itself. Stalemate at MC14The Yaoundé conference ended without agreement on how plurilaterals should be integrated into the WTO framework. The African Group and India blocked attempts to formalise plurilateral negotiations, while the US, EU and Japan expressed frustration at the lack of progress.
Talks dragged on beyond schedule, with heated debates over the e-commerce moratorium and subsidy rules. In the end, ministers left Cameroon with little more than a reaffirmation of existing disagreements.
As one observer noted, “MC14 was less a negotiation than a mirror held up to the WTO’s divisions.”
The stalemate at MC14 underscores the WTO’s existential challenge: balancing efficiency with inclusivity.
Plurilaterals promise progress but risk fragmentation.
Multilateralism ensures legitimacy but often leads to paralysis.
For developing countries, the fear is that plurilaterals will create a two-speed WTO, where advanced economies set rules that others must eventually adopt. For advanced economies, the fear is that without plurilaterals, the WTO will remain stuck in endless deadlock, losing relevance in a rapidly changing global economy.
Way forward
Some trade experts feel the most realistic path forward lies in a hybrid approach. Multilateral and plurilateral trade systems can coexist, provided the WTO addresses issues of interest for all its member countries in a balanced manner, says Prof Kaukab. That will mean making tangible progress on agriculture and development issues that are of primary interest to developing and African countries.
At MC14, 66 countries, representing 70 percent global digital trade, already took a plurilateral path by agreeing on e-commerce trade rules.
So, is this development good?
“Yes, it is for the countries that are part of the plurilateral agreement on e-commerce. The WTO cannot stop them because they are implementing it outside WTO (framework),” Prof Kaukab told the Daily Mail.
Will this not weaken the multilateral trade system of the WTO?
Again, Prof Kaukab answers in the affirmative.
“If there are no agreements at WTO, and agreements are only happening at regional and plurilateral levels, it means the multilateral system will be weakened,” he said.
The other downside of the plurilateral system, according to Prof Kaukab, is that developed countries may sideline issues of importance to developing countries.
Agriculture, for instance, remains a critical sector for many developing economies, yet it has not attracted
sufficient attention from several developed countries.
But this is an issue that can be dealt with only at the multilateral level.
MC14 concluded without consensus on plurilateral reforms. Proponents of these reforms required approval from all WTO members but failed to secure it. WTO executive director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said negotiations on this and other unresolved matters at MC14 will continue in Geneva.
