World Trade Forum to assess WTO past and future

The World Trade Forum to be held in Bern on 25-26 September will examine the expectations and hopes behind the creation of the World Trade Organization 20 years ago, and consider the future challenges facing the trade body.

Launched in 1999, the Forum is an annual event organised by the WTI that brings together leading international scholars and practitioners for two days of discussion on a topical trade issue.

Dialogue will encompass the trade body’s history, new regulatory solutions, dispute-settlement and compliance, the re-emergence of big power politics, and the relationship between the WTO, preferential trade agreements, and megaregionals.

Keynote speakers include: Professor Judith Goldstein, Stanford University; Professor Douglas Irwin, Dartmouth College; Victor do Prado, World Trade Organization; Chad Bown, World Bank; Patrick Low, University of Hong Kong; Joakim Reiter, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; Ricardo Cortés-Monroy, Nestlé, and Peter Van den Bossche, WTO/Maastricht University.

Three plenary sessions will consider expectations and early developments, performance, and future challenges and opportunities.

In addition, parallel sessions will focus on non-tariff measures and new trade issues; PTAs, megaregionals and the WTO, and a World Trade Forum book project.

The Forum is being organised in conjunction with the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, the Graduate Institute (Geneva), and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London). It will be held at the Kursaal conference centre in Bern.

Full programme details can be viewed here.

To register, follow this link.