Outside voices: Could an e-commerce deal spur a WTO ‘renaissance?’

Keith Rockwell, the longtime World Trade Organization official turned analyst, espies hopeful signs at the institution -- signs that, if translated into results, “may well save the institution from its drift into irrelevance.” Rockwell, now a senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation following 25 years at the WTO, points to a “subset of members . . . racing to deliver a deal to permanently ban e-commerce duties” as an institution-shaking possibility with organizational-saving potential. An agreement, he surmises in...