Is the World Trade Organization losing its relevance? The growing number of unresolved trade disputes and export restrictions is pointing to the trade watchdog’s fading importance in the global trade landscape, Reuters reports. Unresolved disputes left in limbo since the US’ halting of new judge appointments in late 2019, coupled with an increase of export curbs left unchecked, has raised concerns that trade could become more fragmented, as evidenced by the rising number of trade “concerns” raised by members of the WTO.

“ People are not feeling in any way constrained by their obligations to the WTO when it comes to policy and that was not the case a decade ago,” one expert said, pointing to issues like the US-China trade wars as examples of political and national security concerns trumping WTO policy. The WTO is also in need of reforms to address issues that have become more relevant in the past few years, like climate change, data flows and security, and AI, the newswire explains, citing WTO delegate concerns.

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