wto

The World Trade Organisation is an organisation supervising, regulating and settling disputes about international trade, and its mandate includes promoting the liberalisation of international trade. The organisation is the custodian of an impressive number of wide-ranging agreements covering the basic rules for trade in goods, in services and in trade-related intellectual property rights. Some of the specific subjects are agriculture, standards and safety, anti-dumping and subsidies rules, non-tariff barriers, trade facilitation, dispute settlement and transparency of the national trade environment for policy and rules in member states.  Most of these agreements originated from the GATT Uruguay Round (1986-94) and were incorporated into the WTO when it was established on January 1st, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement.

Now, 30 years after its founding, the WTO faces significant challenges. The second tier of its dispute settlement system, the Appellate Body, is currently non-functional due to disagreements between the United States and a number of other countries, including the EU, about its proper functioning. The negotiating arm of the organisation has suffered from much adversity over the years, the biggest achievement being the Trade Facilitation Agreement from 2013. Within the framework of the UN, member states committed to SDG 14.6, reaching an agreement on prohibiting harmful fishery subsidies before the end of 2020 – such an agreement was partly reached in 2022 during the organisation’s successful 12th Ministerial Conference held in Geneva. Negotiations continue to aim at completing the agreement before the 14th Ministerial Conference. 

As a trade-dependent, open economy, Denmark - as a member of the European Union - strongly supports the WTO as the cornerstone of a multilateral rules-based global trading system. Denmark is hopeful that ongoing reform initiatives, led by the EU and like-minded countries, will bring positive results in the coming years. For Denmark, the EU and like-minded countries, it is also of paramount importance that the WTO will be able to handle new challenges in areas like trade and climate change and environmental sustainability.

Updated January 2025.