ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief overview of the background to the formidable challenges that face the institution that houses the trading system, the World Trade Organization (WTO). It offers some suggestions to improve both the WTO's internal functioning and its external relations with stakeholders. Many of the Southern countries are far better organised and informed, in part because of the rise of democracy and the growing awareness of trade policy issues in the general public and political institutions and the business community. A policy forum would provide the locus for discussion and debate of basic issues such as the definition of domestic policy space to be safeguarded in the international system. The CGI8 was the only forum for a full, wide-ranging, often contentious debate on the basic issues of the Uruguay Round. The push for including human rights in the WTO is linked to the ongoing - and often heated - debate on customary international law.
