About the WTO election

My colleague Dmitry Grozoubinski, from ExplainTrade – who is one of the leading trade experts in the world – has made a great text about the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General election. Here is the text and link to his entire article.

Nominations are now closed for the post of World Trade Organization director-general, a position becoming vacant in August, a year earlier than planned, due to the resignation of the incumbent, Brazilian diplomat Roberto Azevêdo.

Eight candidates have been put forward by their countries to succeed Mr Azevêdo, but to be successful a single candidate will have to achieve consensus support from the entirety of the WTO’s membership. The coming months should prove interesting.

It is a very strong field, which presents members with a variety of options. There are multiple former ministers, some very old WTO hands, and fantastic regional representation.

For whatever it’s worth, the betting website Ladbrokes currently gives Ambassador Amina Mohamed of Kenya and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria the most favorable odds. The punters are currently more skeptical about the chances of Britain’s Liam Fox and Moldova’s Tudor Ulianovschi.

According to WTO procedure, agreed in more innocent times, the election of a new director-general is supposed to be a six month process divided into three parts:

1 – A month for WTO Members to nominate candidates – this concluded on 8 July;

2 – Three months for the candidates to present themselves to Members and make their case – until early November;

3 – Two months for WTO members to deliberate and arrive at a consensus nominee – theoretically January but the WTO has a college slacker’s record on deadlines.

The next step for the candidates will be a special three-day meeting of the General Council on 15- 17 July. Each candidate will be provided 15 minutes to make their pitch, and then the floor will open to members who can ask the candidates questions to evaluate their suitability.

Thereafter the candidates and their nominating countries will spend subsequent months engaged in an outreach and diplomacy campaign to build support for their candidacy.

To read the article, click here: What do you need to know: What comes next in the WTO director-general race

Source: Borderlex