WTO General Council chair outlines next steps on reform and names facilitators

The chair of the WTO's General Council outlined the next steps for moving to the substantive phase of WTO reform at a heads-of-delegation meeting, the organization said in a June 26 news item, including indicative checkpoints to monitor progress.

Ambassador Clare Kelly of New Zealand, reporting on her consultations with members, said many underlined the urgency of the reform work and that facilitators had been identified for the main areas based on members' nominations. Per the WTO, members are prepared to undertake substantive work on four reform areas — foundational issues, decision-making, development, and level playing field issues — with work in all four conducted in parallel, additional areas able to emerge, and the General Council overseeing and coordinating the overall process.

The facilitators named, per the WTO, are Sumathi Balakrishnan of Malaysia for foundational issues, Katsuro Nagai of Japan for decision-making, Nthisana Motsete-Phillips of Botswana for development, Elmer Jose German Gonzalo Schialer Salcedo of Peru for level playing field issues, and Kairat Torebayev of Kazakhstan for new emerging issues. Kelly set out indicative checkpoints at the General Council's December 2026 meeting, its February 2027 meeting — which marks the chair's transition — and a mid-term ministerial review in 2027. Kick-off discussions on development and on level playing field issues were scheduled for June 30, per the news item.

Background

The World Trade Organization, the Geneva-based body of 166 members that administers global trade rules, has faced a decade of institutional strain: its Appellate Body, the apex of its dispute-settlement system, has been paralyzed since 2019 by a US block on appointments, and its negotiating arm has struggled to conclude multilateral agreements since the collapse of the Doha round. Successive ministerial conferences have mandated reform in general terms while leaving substance and process unresolved.

The consensus rule — every decision requiring no objection from any member — is at once the institution's source of legitimacy and its chief bottleneck, and sits at the center of the decision-making strand now assigned a facilitator. Facilitator-led work organized under the General Council, with named checkpoints, is the WTO's established method for structuring negotiations between ministerial conferences, where final decisions rest.

What comes next

The June 30 kick-off sessions on development and level playing field issues are the first scheduled step, per the WTO, with the December 2026 General Council the first formal checkpoint on progress. The substantive test comes at the 2027 mid-term ministerial review: whether parallel facilitator tracks produce convergence on texts, or reproduce the divides — over consensus, special and differential treatment, and industrial subsidies — that made reform necessary.