The Doha Round foundered on competing visions for trade liberalization, as WTO Members were unable to agree on their level of ambition, on who should liberalize what, and their respective concessions. Today’s challenges to the trade regime are of an entirely different order. The liberalisation narrative is increasingly challenged by rival accounts of the effects of globalization that foreground the impact of import competition on workers, rising inequality, the security implications of international economic interdependence, and the risks posed by pandemics and the climate crisis.

The panel will discuss how globalisation narratives have evolved, the impact of this evolution on international trade policy governance, and to what extent trade policy strategies have played a role in driving or mitigating national or global inequalities overtime. For the future, as we are moving into an increasingly multi-polar world, which still requires countries to urgently cooperate to tackle pressing sustainability challenges, how will countries reconcile competing globalisation narratives. How will they confront the issue of inequality and achieve global sustainability objectives? A central aspect the panellists will consider is, in light of competing globalisation narratives, what potential is there for multilateralism in the future.