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Trade ministers have convened in Cameroon for a four-day conference aimed at reforming the World Trade Organization to better suit the modern global trade ecosystem.
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The organization’s relevance is under threat due to the paralysis of its dispute settlement mechanism and a significant decline in member-states filing mandatory subsidy notifications.
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The United States has criticised the WTO’s “binary construct” of development, arguing that significant global players should no longer benefit from preferential treatment intended for less developed nations.
On Thursday, 26 March, the World Trade Organization (WTO) commenced its 14th biennial meeting in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The conference, attended by trade ministers from across the world, aims to reform WTO rules and to align them with the current trade ecosystem, as the WTO is increasingly deemed outdated.
The four-day conference is chaired by Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, Cameroon’s Minister of Trade. The first and second days cover the WTO’s foundational issues and include a plenary session focused on reform, while the third day will begin with an update on the dispute settlement reform. This will be followed by various sessions, including those on digital commerce, agriculture, development, and an examination of the WTO’s ‘least developed country’ (LDC) frameworks.
The WTO has 166 member-states, and 72% of global trade takes place under WTO rules. However, this is a decline compared to the previous 80%, and there is growing talk of the WTO fading into oblivion, due to its failure to keep up with the changing demands of the international order.
According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, WTO’s Director General, in 2025, only 64 members of the WTO filed subsidy notifications, meaning that 102 did not. A WTO subsidy notification is a formal, mandatory requirement for member-states.
“The world order and multilateral system we used to know has irrevocably changed. We will not get it back… We must look to the future,” said Okonjo-Iweala, during the opening of the conference.
A reason behind the lessening relevance of the WTO is that the WTO dispute settlement mechanism has been paralysed since 2019. This occurred as a result of a US-led blockade of the WTO’s Appellate Body appointments – a seven-member tribunal that reviews the WTO’s dispute settlement reports. The Trump administration, in its first term, raised concerns of judicial overreach, resulting in the Body being unable to review appeals.
Another significant issue is the diverging views on the WTO’s ‘special and differential treatment’ provisions. These measures allow LDCs to benefit from longer time periods to implement agreements, enhanced access to trading opportunities, external support to build trade infrastructure, and, increasingly, the transfer of technology from developed countries.
Ahead of the conference, the US submitted a paper titled ‘Further perspectives on WTO reform’, adding onto their December 2025 brief titled ‘On WTO reform’. The paper criticises the WTO’s ‘special and differential treatment’ provisions, calling it “unacceptable for significant players in the trading system to benefit from preferential treatment.”
The paper also denounces the WTO’s “binary construct of developed and developing countries that does not reflect the realities of global trade in 2026,” questioning the WTO’s classification of LDCs.
However, despite this push for change, earlier this month, Joseph Barloon, the US ambassador to the WTO refused to accept a draft plan for reform, designed under Norwegian leadership.
“My anxiety is if we ministers don’t get this week right, you might see a disorderly collapse of the WTO and some people writing a new rule book,” said Chris Bryant, the UK’s trade minister.
