Can WTO MC14 deliver a consensus WTO reform agenda this time?

As trade ministers converge on Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the WTO's 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) from March 26–29, the multilateral trading system faces its most consequential test since the organisation's founding in 1995. The war in the West Asia has further added uncertainty over the fate of the Ministerial Conference — the highest decision-making authority of the 166-nation multilateral trade body. Though over the years we have witnessed successive failures of WTO Ministerials in delivering results, people do pin some hope on this biennial Ministerial meet. 

Three decades back, when the WTO was set up with 124 founding members, there was a concerted effort to move away from a model where power dictated trade, in which the biggest losers were smaller nations. The WTO was established to address this inequity by creating a rules-based trade governance model. However, today it looks imminent that we risk moving backwards, as a power-based order seems to be overtaking the rules-based order. 

 

While the decision-making system is badly paralysed, evident from the fact that it has delivered just two new multilateral agreements in 30 years — Trade Facilitation and Fisheries Subsidies — trade liberalisation, a key function of the WTO, is completely off the negotiating agenda. The dispute settlement system is also not fully functional, as the Appellate Body ceased to function in December 2019, when the last remaining members' terms ended. In view of the multifarious challenges being faced by the WTO, members have put reforms at the top of their agenda for MC14.

 

What Constitutes Reform Agenda?

 

While the WTO reform debate is not new, for the first time at the 12th Ministerial in June 2022, WTO members decided to undertake reform as the core of their discussion. However, a more focused and structured discussion started taking place in June 2025, when the General Council chair appointed Petter Ølberg (Norway) as facilitator to lead the WTO reform agenda. Over the last nine months, many ideas on reform, including in the form of proposals and submissions, have been made.

 

These ideas cover issues such as improving the deliberative function of the WTO; institutional matters; transparency; the working procedures of WTO councils and committees; development; and more general proposals on overall reform of the organisation. However, the central tension at MC14 is the battle to define one cohesive reform agenda based on consensus among all WTO members.

 

At one end, India and the broader developing-country coalition insist that reform must preserve the WTO's foundational principles: consensus-based decision-making, Most-Favoured-Nation treatment, and special and differential treatment for developing economies. On the other end, several advanced economies, led in practice by the European Union and others, are pushing for a “variable geometry” architecture, where plurilateral agreements among willing members progressively supplant multilateral consensus.

 

The United States, in a very recent supplementary communication to the WTO, prioritised its list of agenda items for ministers to deliberate on at MC14. These include strengthening incentives to comply with existing obligations to submit “notifications”; making S&DT eligibility based on objective criteria as against the existing norm of self-designation; finding a flexible pathway to incorporate plurilateral agreements into the WTO architecture; rethinking the current functioning of the MFN principle; reviewing the role of the WTO secretariat; and, finally, on essential security, the United States wants that members, not WTO adjudicators, have the sole authority to determine their own essential security interests.

 

Three-Track Approach to Drive WTO Reform Talks

 

After six months of intense consultation with members, the facilitator, in his report to the General Council in December 2025, proposed organising the WTO reform work around three distinct tracks — Governance, Fairness, and New challenging issues. More than fifty submissions and proposals have been given by WTO members, both individually and in groups. The list of issues identified under this three-track approach includes decision-making (including consensus), negotiating instruments, existing negotiations and agreements, transparency, development, special and differential treatment, market access (tariffs, reciprocity, and NTBs), subsidies, unfair practices, equity, supply chain resilience, economic security, climate change, digital trade, and artificial intelligence.

 

Dispute Settlement Reform on Separate Track

 

Dispute settlement reform has been kept on a separate track. Restoring a fully functioning, two-tier dispute mechanism remains the top priority. The WTO Appellate Body has effectively been shuttered since 2019, when the United States blocked new appointments under both Biden and Trump, leaving WTO commitments without a credible enforcement ladder. Without it, trade power trumps trade rules, and large economies can ignore adverse rulings by panels without consequence. A workable solution, however partial, is the single most important deliverable MC14 can produce.

 

India’s Approach

 

India's challenge at MC14 is conceptually clear, even if diplomatically complex: use the credibility conferred by its new bilateral relationships to defend, not dilute, the multilateral order. Bilateral trade agreements with developed nations — the EU, UK, and the US — give India something it has rarely possessed at WTO Ministerials: a strong hand. But strong hands must be played with long-term purpose to rescue the multilateral trading system from the current crisis.

 

India needs to protect the core founding principles of the WTO, which include MFN, consensus-based decision-making, single undertaking, and S&DT, and strengthen the existing architecture to protect the interests of LDCs. At Yaoundé, India has the rare opportunity to be both a beneficiary of global trade and its most credible defender. The Cameroon crossroads demands nothing less.

 

Way Forward

 

A considerable amount of groundwork and documentation has been done over the last nine months on the WTO reform agenda. Norway's Ambassador Petter Ølberg, the reform facilitator, has circulated a draft work plan covering decision-making, development mandates, and level playing field issues. Critically, discussions are not yet mature enough for a binding post-MC14 blueprint, but Yaoundé must at a minimum produce a credible roadmap with an agreed common minimum agenda for WTO reform. Without it, the WTO risks becoming what the GATT became in its final years: a body of rules that members observe selectively.

 

The author is chairman of Hi-Tech Gears Limited and past chairman of NABCB, a constituent of the Quality Council of India

 

 

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