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40th Anniversary

CUTS 40th Anniversary

Backgrounder

Coming soon…

Key Messages

At Geneva by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General, WTO
  • This is your 40th Anniversary, and for a civil society organisation to be able to last that long, from a developing country – it is something to be really proud of. I want to congratulate you personally and CUTS for the substantive work that you do. Your criticisms have been constructive. I want to pay tribute to you and to the organisation.
  • You need to build trust in order to reach agreements. You don’t build trust by talking about trust, you build it through action. Members were able to come together to deliver a successful MC12, beyond expectations of most people, even the Members themselves. I have to give them credit and commend them and the staff of the Secretariat who worked so hard to back this up. We’ve achieved this together, that means there is a possibility for us to achieve more.
  • I like to remind people that what was created 75 years ago with GATT, then the WTO, has largely delivered. When I say it, it finds resonance. We need to remind each other. It has delivered so much that I term the multilateral trading system and the WTO a global public good.
  • The world is changing so fast, as we speak. But have the WTO rules and agreements been changing to keep pace? The answer is no. Our negotiation, monitoring and dispute settlement functions all need to be looked at and strengthened so that the organisation will be fit for purpose.
  • When people are bemoaning multilateralism not working, I remind them that there is one multilateral organisation that had Russia-Ukraine, US-China, EU, developed-developing countries around the table and delivered some binding agreements. That is pretty unique, and we should be able to carry that momentum into MC13.