British WTO DG Nominee Says Reviving Appellate Body 'Most Urgent Task'

British Member of Parliament Liam Fox said his experience as United Kingdom trade minister qualifies him to lead the World Trade Organization as director-general. Political skills, not technical ones, are needed in Geneva, he said during a July 30 Washington International Trade Association webinar.

Fox is one of only two candidates to lead the WTO from developed countries, and he spoke repeatedly about how some in the organization are talking about which country's turn it is to hold the top spot. The outgoing director-general is from Latin America; there has never been one from Africa. Fox said he hopes countries will focus on the candidates' skills rather than make “a decision based on where the DG comes from.”

Webinar co-moderator Rufus Yerxa, National Foreign Trade Council president and a former WTO deputy DG, noted that even the decision of which deputy director-general to put in as acting DG has become “a bit of a national competition.”

“It is an indication of how far these members are apart when they can’t even agree on a temporary, interim head,” he said, predicting that the Nov. 7 deadline to choose a new director-general could slip.

Fox called Appellate Body revision “the most urgent task facing the next DG.” He said that members have to grapple with why so many cases are appealed, and how long the litigation process in Geneva takes. He said that when it takes three years for a country to lose a case, that's quite an incentive, because the industry in question can retain a competitive advantage during that time. (Until the past three years, countries did not retaliate against other countries' trade policies until the WTO cleared them to do so).

Fox also said it's not just the U.S. that believes that Appellate Body overreach is a problem; he said it's a widely shared view.

He agreed with Yerxa's assessment that trust is lacking among countries at the WTO, and said there needs to be a way to independently verify countries' claims that are part of the notification process. He also said there's a danger that the actions taken to control the COVID-19 pandemic will exacerbate the economic gap between rich and poor countries. “That will make progress [at the WTO] more difficult,” he said.