WTO Public Forum: Trade Works – Taking Stock After 20 Years

This week, the World Trade Organization is holding its yearly public forum with a focus on the contribution of the organisation to global trade since its inception 20 years ago. Some 90 sessions are planned, on issues such as intellectual property, global value chains, agriculture, trade for development, and the WTO dispute settlement system.

The 2015 WTO Public Forum will be held from 30 September-2 October with the theme “Trade Works.” The event programme is available on the website, here.

According to the WTO, the Public Forum will focus on “how trade works through the multilateral system to boost growth, lift people out of poverty, increase access to goods and medicines, and promote peaceful, mutually-beneficial relationships between nations.” Areas where trade can work better will also be considered.

For the first time, the WTO said, “a women-only panel will open the Public Forum to discuss ‘Making Trade Work More Inclusively.”

Intellectual Property, Industry Sectors, Global Value Chains

The WTO IP Division will hold a panel on “TRIPS: How TRIPS Works: the Law and Economics of Intellectual Property since TRIPS,” and the WTO Legal Affairs Division has a panel on “The Rules-Based International Trading System after 20 Years.”

TRIPS refers to the 1994 WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

Several sessions organised by stakeholders at the forum are focused on IP, such as a panel organised by the United States Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center, entitled, “Are Intellectual Property Rights in Trade Working for You?.” Another panel is convened by the Peoples Health Movement, Médecins Sans Frontières, Third World Network, and UNAIDS, called, “The TRIPS Agreement, Innovation & Access to Medicines: 20 Years on.”

There are not many panels related to public health, but the International Generic Pharmaceutical Alliance will hold a panel on “Principles to Foster Trade in Generic and Biosimilar Medicines.”

An industry panel looks at “Trade means business: How trade opening has changed our sectors over the past 20 years,” put on by Croplife International, Innovation Insights and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA).

A number of panels are organised on the topic of global value chains, such as one set up by the World Trade Center Mumbai and All India Association of Industries (Global Value Chains and Changing Patterns of Value Added Trade in Developing Economies), and a panel convened by the Institute of Developing Economies – Japan External Trade Organization (Plugging in to the global agricultural value chain – A perspective from developing countries in Asia).

The International Trade Centre is organising a session on Driving innovation: building sustainable supply chains, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is organising with the World Bank a panel titled Developing Countries and Global Value Chains: Why, What, Where to?

Agriculture and food security are also among the issues tackled by the forum, such as the one organised by the Swiss Farmers’ Union (Agriculture and Trade after 20 years of WTO), and the one set up by the Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et des Producteurs Agricoles d’Afrique de l’Ouest (Network of Peasant organisations and West African agricultural producers); Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World); and the National Association of Nigerian Traders (Given the threat of the Economic Partnership Agreements on the Sub-Saharan Africa’s food security the WTO can and should improve its rules of agricultural trade)

Among other subjects tackled at the forum are free trade agreements, investment rules, and competition.

Book Launches

Books are also expected to be launched during the forum, such as “The Making of the TRIPS Agreement: Personal Insights from the Uruguay Round Negotiations” on 1 October, and on 2 October: The WTO at twenty: challenges and achievements.

According to the WTO, “the Public Forum is the WTO’s largest annual outreach event, which provides a platform for participants to discuss the latest developments in world trade and to propose ways of enhancing the multilateral trading system.”

“The event regularly attracts over 1,500 representatives from civil society, academia, business, the media, governments, parliamentarians and inter-governmental organizations,” the WTO said.

William New contributed to this report.

 

Image Credits: WTO