WTO to appoint first female director-general to shortlist

Business news for Friday, October 9, 2020

Source: Goldstreet Business

2020-10-09

The selection of a new director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is entering its final stage.

The last two, from an initial list of eight candidates, are former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee.

They are both women, which means that if WTO members are able to rally around one of them in the final stages of selection, it will be the first time a woman has assumed the position.

Ms. Okonjo-Iweala and Ms. Yoo have political and international experience and both were students at American universities.

Ms. Okonjo-Iweala, who is also a US citizen, has twice served as Minister of Finance and a brief Minister of Foreign Affairs in Nigeria.

Much of his career was spent as an economist at the World Bank. She eventually rose to the position of managing director, essentially the second in command of the institution. She has been a failed candidate for the bank’s top job.

She is currently chair of the board of directors of the international vaccine alliance, Gavi.

She has not spent her career immersed in the details of trade policy like other candidates did. But her job as a development economist and finance minister means that she has often had to grapple with international trade.

She describes the trade as “a mission and a passion.”

Ms. Okonjo-Iweala would be the first African to be Director General of the WTO.

Unsurprisingly, African countries have backed it as one of their own and also in the hope that it will support greater protectionism against imports from developed economies, which tend to leave them with a perennial deficit on the trade balance. However, Okonjo-Iweala is a conservative economist, steeped in Bretton Woods economic doctrine, so if she wins, African countries may be collectively disappointed in this regard.

Ms. Yoo is much more of a trade specialist.

His statement to the WTO general council hinted at a literal life in the area: He said that it was born the same year that South Korea acceded to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which became one of the key elements of the book of WTO rules.

He began his career in trade, he said, the year the WTO was born, 1995.

She has been involved in some of South Korea’s key trade negotiations in that period, including with China and the United States. It highlights his “deep knowledge and understanding of the details of various areas of trade agreements.”

Under stress

Both candidates were interested in pointing out their abilities to bring the parties together in the negotiations.

That is a skill the successful candidate will have to take full advantage of.

It is important to remember that a WTO Director General can only make progress by getting member countries to join.

But the WTO is an organization under stress. Two of the planet’s biggest trading powers, China and the United States, are embroiled in a bitter trade conflict.

The United States has some substantial concerns about the WTO. Many of them predate President Trump, but his administration has taken a less collaborative approach to going after them.

The United States has undermined the ability of the WTO to carry out one of its main functions: resolving trade disputes between member countries.

It has refused to allow the body that hears appeals to appoint new members, de facto judges. This reflects the United States’ concern that the agency’s judgments go beyond the WTO rules. The US bloc has left it unable to accept new appeals cases.

It does not mean that the dispute resolution system is not working at all, but it is seriously damaged.

In terms of diversity, the WTO appears to be heading into new territory. It is almost certain that he will have a woman as CEO for the first time a woman.

Regional representation could also break new ground, if the African candidate gets the job; before there has been an Asian CEO, from Thailand.

If all goes according to plan, we’ll find out who it is in early November.