WTO 2.0: Governance of 21st century trade

Abstract

Issue Title: Special Issue: The Political Economy of Multilateral Trade Negotiations

The cross-border flows of goods, investment, services, know-how and people associated with international production networks-call it 'supply-chain trade' for short-has transformed the world. The WTO has not kept pace. This paper argues that adapting world trade governance to the realities of supply-chain trade will require a new organization-a WTO 2.0 as it were. Reasoning on the optimal nature of the new organization is based on the nature of supply-chain trade, the nature of the disciplines that underpin it, and the nature of the gains from cooperation.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]