Eight candidates from Mexico to Moldova will compete for the top job at the World Trade Organization, trying to convince its 164 members that they can steer the body through escalating global trade tensions and rising protectionism.
A final 24-hour flurry added three names to the field to replace the Brazilian Roberto Azevedo, who will resign at the end of August, a year earlier than expected.
With three of the six previous CEOs coming from Europe and the others from Thailand, Brazil and New Zealand, there has been pressure to pick a leader from Africa.
However, the third largest continent has not united into a single figure, but has produced three candidates, of Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria. The others are from Great Britain, Mexico, Moldova, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
The WTO has never had a female leader either. Three in the field are women.
The eight are expected to appear before the general council of ambassadors next week ahead of an unspecified campaign period. A “troika” of ambassadors will seek input in the hope that members can unite around a name.
"It's like electing a pope. It is a consensus process», said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the trade think tank ECIPE.
The process normally takes nine months, but the WTO now wants to do it in three.
The work is difficultThe WTO is expected to go into overdrive over a range of disputes, including fisheries subsidies, ahead of a biennial conference in 2021. It also faces pressure to Updating global trade rules established 25 years ago.
That means finding consensus on new rules as tensions rise between the United States and China and other smart countries over more than 100 trade barriers erected since the coronavirus outbreak earlier this year.
“The WTO is not a really flourishing organisation,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in May. “It’s not a job you can really score on.”
Source: Reuters
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