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1/18 The new Legatum paper covers a wide range of topics. This thread focuses on the WTO & repeated references to the UK being a WTO leader
2/18 A lot of it deals with issues such as regulations and standards. Others may have comments on those. I’ll stick to broader WTO topics
3/18 It has some valid points. But with so much misreading, eg on WTO negotiations, it’s questionable how solid the rest of the paper is
4/18 Eg this. The UK can “explain” as much as it likes. It won’t be the first. Securing WTO consensus on what that means is something else 
5/18 Back in 2001, WTO members did agree on the need to liberalise. They launched new talks with this declaration. wto.org/english/thewto…
6/18 Result? The “Doha Round” reached no agreement except in limited areas. Would a UK explanation have helped? wto.org/english/tratop…
7/18 WTO members can’t even agree if the Doha Round is over or not. Nairobi 2015: would UK explanation have helped? wto.org/english/thewto…
8/18 “Trade leader” again, but hang on a minute. “WTO members” includes the EU and its member states. WTO = 164 members = 164 trade agendas
10/18 But too late here. The UK and EU are already working jointly on this. Difficult to separate them tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/pri…
11/18 This is nonsense. Other members have already challenged “rectification”. UK and EU are “other WTO members” for each other’s TRQs too
12/18 By the way, the reason for the UK-EU common WTO position is Phase 1 of the EU’s Art.50 negotiating guidelines consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press…
13/18 Finally on a UK-EU free trade agreement (FTA). Telling the WTO early on about it will almost certainly make no difference because …
14/18 … the WTO committee of WTO members dealing with this has almost no teeth … wto.org/english/tratop…
15/18 … Although the committee can be useful for clarifying facts. These are minutes from the latest meeting docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages/F…
16/18 Anyway, UK & EU are supposed to notify an FTA “promptly” (from GATT: contracting parties now = WTO members) wto.org/english/docs_e…
17/18 In practice, par (b) is unworkable. No comments made by other countries has ever had any impact, at least in WTO years (from 1995)
18/18 Details of a UK-EU deal will be important “for information only” unless there’s a serious violation eg passporting-only in services
