Engagement of the Asian and African Nations in the WTO: An Assessment of the Buenos Aires Ministerial Meeting

Abstract

The last WTO Ministerial Conference at Buenos Aires, Argentina, convened from 10 to 13 December 2017, and its aftermath has raised interesting questions regarding legitimacy, efficacy and necessity of the rule-based multilateral trading regime institutionalized in the WTO. An analysis of Afro-Asian countries ' stakes in the WTO furnishes convincing arguments in favour of retaining the systemic infrastructure. This article contends that orchestrating the emerging network of bilateral and or regional arrangements in the regions within the purview of the WTO shall improve the effectiveness of engagement of these countries in the organization. Also, the unambiguous affirmation of a reconfigured Doha Development Agenda is important in order to address the yet unresolved and nascent issues. Finally, the cynical approach towards the trend of resorting to plurilateralism in WTO negotiations whenever multilateral consensus appears to fail ought to be replaced by strategies to utilize the inherent flexibility of the idea of plurilateralism to initiate crystallization of consensus on issues of concern.  Keywords: WTO Eleventh Ministerial Conference, multilateralism, single undertaking, plurilateralism, Doha Development AgendaKennedy Gastorn; Secretary General, Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization;  Email: kgastorn@gmail.com