The negotiating function of the World Trade Organization appears to be malfunctioning and there is little end in sight for the current Doha Development Round after several years of talks.

Following the financial turmoil of recent years, murky non-tariff protectionism remains a risk to trade-led growth. In an uncoordinated manner, a plethora of bilateral free trade agreements are setting new rules for international trade. Large mega-regional arrangements – such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership – are attempting to consolidate and shape such rules into 21st-century trade disciplines. However, the future direction of mega-regional negotiations and their relationship with WTO multilateral trade rules are unclear.

Against this backdrop, the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo and the Graduate Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration jointly organised a conference entitled “The Future of the World Trading System: Asian Perspectives”.

With its successful model of outward-oriented development, Asia has increasingly emerged at the centre of gravity of the world economy. The solutions developed in Asia to the “noodle bowl” problem will be of interest to other regions and likely influence the future course of the world trading system.

All these conclusions are gathered in a new book: A World Trade Organization for the 21st Century: The Asian Perspective, edited by Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics, along with Masahiro Kawai and Ganeshan Wignaraja.