Its trade monitoring functions remain of value.Ottawa—While a couple of its key functions are on hold because of international disputes, the World Trade Organization can still play a useful role in international trade, says Lawrence Herman, a Toronto lawyer and a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.The WTO's negotiating functions are at a standstill and its dispute settlement system is dysfunctional because of the disputes, he says.Although there is no end in sight to its problems, the WTO can still have a useful future role. It can serve “as a central body monitoring and reporting on key trends and forecasts in global trade. It can become a forum for debate and exchanges among governments on critical trade issues, all of which can contribute to keeping the rules-based trading order more or less alive.”Its paralysis occurred as the WTO's membership grew to 170 countries accompanied by shifts in relative economic and political weight, Herman said. That has made it almost impossible to achieve unanimity on negotiating priorities.It is regrettable the WTO has been a bystander in dealing with critical issues like sustainability and climate change, digitalization, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and other global priorities.The U.S. refusal to agree on appointments to the Appellate Body, which hears appeals from lower trade panel rulings, means the WTO's once-heralded dispute settlement system no longer works. Correcting this is linked to a broader and much more entrenched challenge of institutional reform, overhauling the entire WTO system, he said.With 650 full-time staff, the WTO has become a hugely complex organization in terms of governance adding to the difficulties in getting negotiations back on track and restoring the WTO's adjudicative functions.On the positive side, the WTO is active in global trade monitoring and analysis and produces an annual report estimating trends in world trade growth over the coming year. Its annual World Trade Report and the World Trade Statistical Review and other periodic reports are of excellent value to the global community.Its reviews member countries discharging of their WTO obligations is part of the transparency mandate the WTO does very well. “No stone is left unturned.”Its various councils and committees of member governments continue to operate as forums for discussion on trade-related subjects like development, the environment, climate change, decarbonization, agriculture, trade remedies, digitized services and a host of other key issues, Herman said.“Even if this falls short of negotiating new trade deals, these inter-governmental exchanges and the regular reports from these sub-bodies help maintain some degree of global order and respect for WTO rules.“This all adds up to the conclusion is that less political energy should be expended in trying to resolve the WTO's intractable political and institutional problems. More attention needs to be paid to ensuring the WTO continues what it does best, providing a public forum for international trade concerns, issuing analyses on world trade and reporting regularly on global trends and member compliance with WTO rules. This could be the WTO's most important service to the global community.”