Firstly, India needs to prepare a comprehensive country paper articulating its stance on WTO reforms necessary to grapple with the rapidly transforming nature of global trade. This is a high priority. Major economies of the world — the United States, European Union and China — have each submitted multiple papers to advance the reform agenda, with the latest submissions from China and the US in March 2026 and three papers from the EU in July this year. While all have highlighted the need to make the WTO more compatible with the contemporary global trade environment, each has expressed in detail its priority areas and clear stance on the nature of desired reform. India’s commitment to reviving the WTO, as communicated in the Brics joint statement, is well-known. However, it is important that India now spell out a concrete reform agenda with an actionable plan for submission to the WTO.
Secondly, common across reform submissions is the emphasis on plurilaterals as a possible way out of the WTO’s over three-decade-long struggle to achieve any significant multilateral agreement through the consensus-based approach. Plurilaterals, as a group of likeminded countries initiating negotiations in an area of common interest, have long existed under the WTO rubric. However, plurilaterals have gained momentum in the last few years as multilateral negotiations have increasingly floundered with the expanded WTO membership and its diverse interests.
After the 14th ministerial conference held earlier this year, a sense of urgency has developed owing to two plurilateral agreements — on ecommerce and investment facilitation — not finding their way into the WTO architecture, despite support from a substantial majority of the membership. Active discussions are, therefore, now being undertaken on possible alternatives to resolve the impasse. Two issues — one, legal incorporation of the plurilateral agreements in the WTO architecture and, two, benefits of the plurilateral agreements being restricted to participating members only or being extended to non-participating members as well — have emerged as critical for determining the future of plurilaterals as a means of negotiating the future rules of global trade.
While India’s note on plurilaterals, submitted to the WTO last week indicates its willingness to discuss plurilaterals, it is more a reiteration of its earlier stand than a recognition of the changing landscape of rule-making in global trade. Influential like-minded countries are now coming together to formulate rules on new-age issues such as digital trade and climate sustainability, among others. Even countries that have adhered to multilateral trade rules, thus far, are not hesitant anymore to negotiate plurilaterals outside the WTO. This emerging position is viewed as necessary to achieve regulatory coordination that is, in turn, required to facilitate modern-day international trade and business.
In fact, the EU-Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Trade and Investment Dialogue partnership formed in 2025 is being considered as a vehicle for forward movement in this context, in particular for digital trade rules that could be complementary to the ecommerce agreement. Therefore, alongside signalling its intent for discussion, India needs to reassess its understanding of the fast-evolving alternative architectures of “variable geometry” being used in negotiating global trade rules. Simultaneously, it is also imperative that India propose concrete and workable ground rules and guardrails for plurilateral initiatives at the WTO.
Thirdly, now that India has altered its stand towards plurilaterals, it may also be appropriate to reconsider its stance on joining the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). In the absence of a fully functional and staffed Appellate Body (AB) of the WTO, this interim plurilateral arrangement provides an alternative for the settlement of disputes appealed by its members. Instituted in March 2020, the MPIA has 61 participating members and embodies the appeal review rules of the WTO, thereby assisting in their orderly enforcement. The pool of 10 arbitrators is selected through nomination, review and subsequent appointment by consensus among the MPIA participants.
Any WTO member can join the MPIA, which is likely to exist till the AB is revived. Given that some of India’s major trade partners, including the EU, China, Australia, the UK and Singapore, are members, participation in the MPIA will help prevent India from appealing WTO dispute panel decisions into a void. Furthermore, membership of the MPIA does not prevent India from advocating for the resolution of the crisis in the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism or impact, in any manner, its trade relationship with the US.
Fourthly, as national security concerns, supply chain resilience and industrial policy acquire salience with growing geopolitical pressures, revisiting and updating subsidies-related disciplines is deemed necessary and hence proposed for reform by several important member economies. For India, subsidies are significant from a food security and development perspective. Therefore, a well-considered and balanced delineation of its interests is required to be formulated as part of the reform proposal from India.
Lastly, while voicing concern over the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) as a unilateral, discriminatory trade instrument adversely impacting the manufacturing competitiveness of the developing world is fair, it is important that India intensify its efforts towards closer and efficient alignment of its recently launched carbon credit trading scheme with global carbon-pricing and verification frameworks as also its free trade agreements (FTAs). While India has successfully negotiated some concessions with the UK, the EU CBAM has not just potentially expanding coverage but also more tedious compliance procedures that may be well beyond the capabilities of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. Providing financial and technical assistance to these SMEs is crucial for India to make the best of its FTA with the EU.
Therefore, much urgent follow-up work is required for India to actualise its intent into outcomes and take these issues of trade policy forward in Brics, WTO, and other international fora.
(The writer is professor, School of International Studies, JNU, and the author of India’s Trade Policy in the 21st Century, published by Routledge, London. The views are personal)
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