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| An Analysis of Plurilateral Agreements Approach to Revitalize the WTO Negotiation Function |
| Tu Xinquan, Shi Xiaojing |
| China Institute for WTO Studies, University of International Business and Economics, Beijing 100029, China |
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Abstract At present, the WTO multilateral trade negotiations are struggling. The Doha Round, launched in 2001, has not been successfully concluded, and there is little hope of its resumption. At the same time, more and more WTO members choose to participate in regional trade agreements. Although this approach can effectively promote trade liberalization and facilitation, it also leads to the fragmentation of the world trade rules system and puts the WTO at the risk of being marginalized. Under this circumstance, the plurilateral agreement model is regarded as a realistic way to reforming the WTO negotiation mechanism and to revitalizing the negotiation function.Most of the existing literature studies plurilateral agreements from the perspectives of law and politics, but few studies have been comprehensively conducted on whether the plurilateral agreement model can be used as a reform path from the perspective of economics.This paper systematically investigates the realistic possibility of the plurilateral agreement model as the path of reform, and demonstrates it from four aspects: legality, rationality, feasibility and the status of overcoming obstacles. On this basis, in view of the absence of rules in the WTO system, this paper puts forward some suggestions on the design of rules for the standardization and multilateralization of the plurilateral agreement model.First, taking the plurilateral agreement model as the reform path for WTO negotiations is legitimate. The formation of plurilateral agreements is recognized by the WTO, while negotiation and operation are subject to WTO rules. The formulated rules are legitimate within the WTO and constitute a part of the WTO system. Hence, advancing negotiation reform through this model may ensure that new rules still comply with the WTO legal and institutional backgrounds.Second, it is reasonable to promote the reform of negotiation mechanism through the plurilateral agreement model. On the one hand, the plurilateral agreement is essentially a small multilateral agreement, which is aligned with the multilateral agreement in terms of its essential concept and scope. On the other hand, the plurilateral agreement model is superior to the regional agreement model because it is more constrained by the WTO, which adopts a single-issue approach for efficient negotiation and involves less political motivation.Third, it is feasible to adopt the plurilateral agreement model to break the deadlock in negotiations. In particular, it reduces the number of participants and thus the disagreements in the negotiations. Moreover, it allows some like-minded members to independently advance the negotiation procedure, thus reducing the difficulty of negotiations. Besides, it adopts a single-issue approach to effectively improve the efficiency of negotiations. On the whole, it can solve the dilemma of the current negotiations.Finally, some members have doubts about the implementation of the plurilateral agreement model, but these doubts are basically unnecessary, or can be overcome through institutional improvement. Most fundamentally, the members’ concern about the exclusivity issues of closed plurilateral agreement model and the free-riding issues of open plurilateral agreement model are actually trivial. In addition, the concern of some members that the plurilateral agreement model would politically increase the power imbalance under the existing WTO system is also surmountable.Based on the above analysis, during the current reform of the WTO, all members should more actively consider the plurilateral agreement model as a breakthrough path, so that the WTO can make a timely response to the new situation of international trade. China should also continue to play its role as a major country, to grasp and guide the trend of WTO negotiation reform and plurilateral negotiations.
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Received: 15 January 2021
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2021, Vol. 51 
