In the flurry of regional trade agreements and the memory of the failure of the Doha Round, one might question the relevance of the WTO. But the United States-China trade war and the paralysis of the WTO’s dispute settlement function only serve to underline that the world should not take the global multilateral trading system for granted.

The WTO's role has been considered effective in accelerating economic growth and increasing global prosperity. The trade value has quadrupled, tariff barriers have dropped significantly by 50 percent, and the WTO's dispute resolution mechanism has facilitated about 600 trade disputes.

However, persistent hurdles remain. One of them is that the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) has not been agreed upon since 2001. The inability of WTO member countries to reach a consensus on the liberalization of the agricultural and industrial sectors and policies in some sectors and to deal with subsidies and non-tariff barriers has resulted in a deadlock and sub-optimal potential benefits from DDA, particularly for developing countries.

After 25 years, the rules implemented by the organization have been stuck in the 20^th century, in a world that has progressed when it comes to regional value chains, digital services trade and e-commerce.

Such a development has triggered proposals to reform the WTO. There are three key areas of reform for consideration to make the WTO more effective.

First is related to negotiations and principles focusing on horizontal issues, such as decision-making and special standard and differential treatment (S&DT). The rule-making condition in the WTO has made it increasingly hard to achieve consensus with a single undertaking and consensus approach.

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