Plurilateral agreements may help keep WTO relevant into the future

A large number of developing economies have been benefitted, through their participation in FTAs, and increased their integration with GVCs and their share of global trade

Earlier this month Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in her lecture at the London School of Economics, emphasised the need to speak up for the multilateral institution, particularly when the dominant funding economy has chosen to suppress its voice and relevance. Her statement augurs well for the WTO, which stands at a crossroads in terms of its fundamental processes and the objective of promoting freer and fairer trade. While there has been much talk about the United States  blocking appointments to the Appellate Body of the Dispute Settlement Mechanism, the decline of the institution, in