30 years on: A call to action to restore economic cooperation at the WTO

“Opportunity.” That was the word that Peter Sutherland, the first WTO Director-General, used to describe the creation of the new global framework to govern trade in goods and services, back in 1994. He specifically referred to “opportunities to expand trade, economic growth and employment … opportunities to promote sustainable development… And an opportunity — the most significant we have had for fifty years — to build a new basis for global economic cooperation”.