IISD's Trade Program has focused much attention on the WTO, and how it might be made more responsive to the challenges posed by a concern for sustainable development.

Key Message - World Trade Organization (WTO) IISD devotes particular focus to the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trade regime that it administers, exploring the wider policy externalities of its trade rules and of WTO negotiations in new areas such as services, environment and agriculture.

The WTO not only sets rules which circumscribe the way environmental policies may be formulated, but it also embodies more general rules which guide the flow of trillions of dollars of economic activity across the borders of the world—activity that has enormous potential to frustrate or foster sustainable development.

As well, the WTO has been gradually moving to extend its authority into non-trade areas of domestic policy relevant to sustainable development, such as intellectual property rights, investment, services and competition policy.

The current negotiations under the Doha Mandate provide a number of clear areas of focus in the nexus that binds trade, environment and development.

Featured Content

• WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference
  The WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial, held December 13-18, 2005, kept the Doha Round from disintegrating, but failed to do much more. Read IISD's commentary on the results, and see the events in which we were involved.

• Cancun Ministerial
  The WTO's Cancun Ministerial Conference, held Sept. 10 - 14, 2003, marked in many ways a watershed event for the Organization. Read IISD's commentary on the results, and see what IISD was doing on the sidelines.

• Doha Round Briefing Series (August 2003)
  A set of 13 briefings on the key issues of trade and sustainable development in the Doha Round negotiations. Produced with the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

• IISD Trade and Development Briefing Series (2003)
  A set of briefings on the key issues of trade and development in the Doha Round negotiations. Produced for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

• Qatar Ministerial Briefing Series (Fall 2001)
  A set of 5 briefings on the key issues of trade and sustainable development. Produced in the run up to the Qatar Ministerial Conference of the WTO.

• WTO Links
  Links to the best Web sites for information on the WTO.

• WTO Archives
  IISD's archived older work on the WTO. Warning: some of this material is out of date, and many URLs are no longer valid.