In a stunning move, Roberto Azevedo, head of the World Trade Organization, announced last week that he would resign his post a year early. Azevedo’s decision reflected mounting frustration over an increasingly hobbled organization, constraints that have assumed larger significance as the world battles the worst trade crisis since the Great Depression.
It is also a cri de coeur to rally its members and supporters for one final attempt to restore the WTO’s relevance and capacity. The record of the last two decades does not inspire much hope or confidence, but it is a battle that must be fought.
Azevedo’s second term as WTO director general was to expire in September 2021. But next year the 12th Ministerial Meeting of the WTO will also be held — originally scheduled for next month, it has been postponed a year because of the COVID pandemic — and Azevedo rightly worried that selection of a new director general would overshadow critical discussions about WTO reform. “Instead of focusing all efforts on the search for compromise ... we would be spending valuable time on a politically charged process that has proved divisive in the past,” he warned.