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2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. WTO in a Changing Geopolitical Environment

Author : Sandra Polaski

Published in: Global Trade and Trade Governance During De-Globalization

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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ABSTRACT

The creation of the WTO in 1995 was emblematic of a moment in time. Three factors determined its shape: globalization was gaining rapid momentum; the collapse of the Soviet Union (before the rise of China) left the US as the sole superpower; and the economic consensus in the west had shifted from a post-war Keynesian to a neoliberal view that markets were the best way to allocate resources. The resulting WTO rule book for transnational economic governance was written by the west, particularly the US, to protect the rights of private firms while reigning in government intervention. The chapter explores these features and then turns to the challenges to the organization’s legitimacy, beginning with discontent among developing countries, which considered its terms to be unfair to their development prospects, and civil society. The US gradually came to resent the constraints that the WTO dispute settlement mechanism placed on its own behavior. As China grew as major trading power, several western countries began to agitate for changes in the rules to constrain the Chinese model of capitalism. The WTO is now strained further by rising geostrategic competition between the US and China and the economic and health effects of the global coronavirus pandemic. The chapter lays out three possible futures for the WTO as it navigates these complex currents.

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previous chapter Global Trade Policy Regimes and Previous Crises

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Title: WTO in a Changing Geopolitical Environment
Author: Sandra Polaski
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Global Trade and Trade Governance During De-Globalization
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13756-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-13757-0

Copyright Year: 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13757-0_3