The WTO is an essential plank of globalization. Imperfect and ­incomplete as WTO disciplines are, they provide a degree of predictability and stability to trade relations, the value of which has been brought home yet again by the 2008–2009 financial crisis. In a world of sluggish growth and burgeoning protectionist pressures, the importance of rules increases and the need to tighten them becomes more urgent.

The need for reform

However, to a worrying degree, the WTO is today living off the gains of its predecessor, the GATT system. In crucial aspects of its traditional mission, namely reducing actual and bound (i.e. maximum allowable) tariffs, the institution has become increasingly ineffectual. No new trade liberalization in goods and no new lowering of bound tariffs have been agreed under multilateral negotiations since the Uruguay Round concluded in 1994.

In newer areas, such as cutting agricultural subsidies and opening up the markets for services trade, the WTO has so far failed to deliver on its promise. Sluggish WTO negotiations have been overtaken and sidelined by unilateral (i.e. autonomous) liberalization as well as bilateral and regional processes.

Though the Doha agenda is reduced to a shadow of what was launched in December 2001, its conclusion is critical to capturing the gains still on the table and to preserving the system's credibility. The G-8 meeting held in L'Aquila, Italy, in July 2009 called for a conclusion of the negotiations by the end of 2010, and given the long history of missed deadlines and the time needed for ratification, it is unlikely that implementation can begin before the end of 2011, the tenth anniversary of the start of the negotiations.