Credit: World Trade Organization (WTO)

By Kinda Mohamadieh
YAOUNDE, Cameroon, Apr 2 2026 (IPS)

The WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14), which took place from 26 to 30 March 2026 in Cameroon, was reported as a collapse resulting from the stand-off between Brazil and the United States on the extension of the e-commerce moratorium. This is one screen shot of a bigger unfolding story where the US is attempting to enforce its will on the organization, while some are resisting.

The Trump administration did not pull the US out of the WTO so that it can complete a project of remaking the organization into one that fits the US’s vision of a new international order serving its ‘national security interests’. Since the Trump administration came into office, they made clear that their approach to foreign relations will be based on brutal power and politics of coercion. The WTO 14th ministerial conference is one international forum where these politics manifested.

The US vision for remaking the organization, as reflected in its submissions under the ‘WTO reform’ negotiations, along with the statement of US Trade Representative in Yaoundé, embody an attack on the raison d’etre of the organization, which is multilateralism.

Multiple US administrations had maintained a fairly consistent approach to the WTO, undermining some of its key functions, such as through paralyzing the dispute settlement function, and pushing for a self-judging non-reviewable national security exception.

The latter could effectively become an opt-out mechanism for the US from its obligations under the WTO rules including the most-favoured-nation (MFN) principle, and secure an immunity from questioning for any US unilateral trade measures packaged as a security issue.

The Trump administration’s talk at the WTO did not hide behind diplomatic or legal jargon. The US submissions made it clear that they are out to dismantle the fundamental pillar that holds the multilateral trading system together – that of non-discrimination and the MFN principle.

They want to strip away the system from an effective ‘special and differential treatment’, a core part of the original bargain that made the WTO establishment possible and that reflected in trade law an acknowledgment that one-size-fits-all rules do not work given the varying levels of development among Members.

The US vision is to turn the WTO from a multilateral organization where each Member, big or small, have an equal voice, to a platform of deals among the big players where it can effectively control the setting of the agenda and focus the organization on US corporate interests.

This is effectively what the US attempted at MC14, where they focused attention on their proposal for a permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic commerce transmissions.

In Yaoundé, the US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer suggested there “would be consequences,” if the US did not get this delivered. This was the US administration carrying forward the agenda of its tech corporate giants. Since 1998, the US had secured this moratorium against the growing concerns of developing countries that this practice costs them billions of dollars in forgone tariff revenue that is key for their development, industrialization and building of digital capacities.

Ironically, the Trump administration brought the multilateral trading system to its knees by its aggressive unjustified tariff policies and illegal bilateral tariff deals over the past year. In Yaoundé, the same administration denied the developing countries the legitimate use of tariff policy to advance developmental objectives and preserve digital sovereignty and policy space essential for developing their digital economy.

It is clear that the US’s fight at the WTO is not only against China. It seeks to erase any trajectory towards industrialization and competitive edge that any other developing country could potentially build under multilateralism.

With no decision on this issue nor on WTO reform, the LDC package, and the Moratorium on TRIPS non-violation complaints achieved in Yaoundé, the work will be brought back to Geneva. A question often posed in Geneva is how to keep the US engaged in the negotiations, which will become more prominent in light of what unfolded in Yaoundé.

When negotiations are overwhelmed by this question, the attention moves away from efforts to make the organization relevant for all its members, and a forum where negotiations could potentially lead to compromises and outcomes for members at different levels of development. Even decision makers in the WTO administrative body get geared towards ensuring the US stays on board. This adds to the distortions.

In this context, developing countries face the larger threats of fragmentation and distraction from their key concerns and interests. Yet, the costs of such fragmentation cannot be higher in the face of the unfolding project to remake the WTO.

Multiple US administrations showed WTO members how they can keep key negotiation agendas, like the dispute settlement reform, in limbo and block the functioning of the WTO appellate body against the will of the rest of the membership.

In this case, the US’s blocking is void of any justified principled position, but rather a brutal imposition of their will and narrow interests on the rest of the WTO membership.

In the face of the remake project of the WTO advanced by the US, and largely supported by the European Union, what Jane Kelsey calls “a coup underway at the WTO”, developing countries need to stand together despite the differences they might have on some negotiation portfolios where their national interests might dictate disparities in the negotiation positions.

In such an era, managing differences while leveraging the power of dialogue, cooperation and coalition building is crucial to maintain a voice and role in determining how the WTO will be functioning in the future.

A WTO focused on plurilaterals as a norm rather than exception will be a place where the voice of developing countries is eroded. Trade wars will potentially be imported into the WTO through simultaneous plurilateral counterinitiatives leading to further fragmentation of this trading regime. This will be a world where MFN is discarded, consensus decision-making undermined, and leverage points to advance issues of development and special and differential treatment eroded.

Developing countries should collectively assess the cost such a future hold for them and the WTO, its survival as a multilateral organization and its potential to deliver for Members at different levels of development.

IPS UN Bureau

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The WTO reform agenda is a distraction. The real prize is dismantling MFN through plurilateral precedents. Credit: WTO

By Chien Yen Goh and Kinda Mohamadieh
GENEVA, Mar 24 2026 (IPS)

As trade ministers gather in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) on 26–29 March 2026, the preparatory process has produced a dense fog of competing reform proposals, draft ministerial statements, and work plans.

The facilitator-led consultations at the WTO headquarters in Geneva focused for the past few weeks on decision-making, development and Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT), as well as level-playing-field issues, while the United States, European Union and others tabled their own reform submissions.

The sheer volume and scope of this activity have muddied the picture of what exactly requires ministerial attention and decision.

This confusion, however, serves a purpose. It obscures the fact that the U.S. — which has done more than any other member to destabilise the multilateral trading system through unilateral tariffs, bilateral Agreements on Reciprocal Trade (ARTs), and paralysing the WTO Appellate Body — is not primarily interested in the reform or continued relevance of the WTO.

Its 2026 Trade Policy Agenda, released earlier this month, makes this plain: the US will push to reorient the WTO’s negotiating function by “favouring meaningful plurilateral agreements” and “urging reassessment of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle” so that trading nations can differentiate among partners in their liberalisation commitments.

The MFN rule is the foundational principle of the WTO that requires any trade advantage granted to one WTO member to be extended equally to all. The U.S. WTO reform paper submitted to the General Council in December 2025 (WT/GC/W/984) goes further, arguing that MFN “is not just unsuitable for this era” but actively prevents countries from optimising their trade relationships.

Outside the WTO, the U.S. is pursuing its trade interests through bilateral ARTs with Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and others. Since its Supreme Court struck down the legal basis for these ARTs, section 301 of the U.S. 1974 Trade Act has been activated. But within the WTO, the U.S. priority at MC14 is more focused and consequential than the reform agenda suggests.

The immediate objective is to secure adoption of the plurilateral Investment Facilitation Agreement (IFA) into the WTO’s legal architecture under Annex 4 of the Marrakesh Agreement — despite the U.S. not having participated in the IFA negotiations and having no interest in being a party to it. U.S. Ambassador Joseph Barloon identified the IFA as one of a limited number of issues the U.S. wants decided at MC14.

Why would the US push through an agreement it will not sign? Because the IFA is not the end but the means. Its incorporation into the WTO — while its initiation, negotiation and addition have been formally contested — would establish that plurilateral agreements can be adopted and added to the WTO rulebook without the consent of all members. Once that door is opened, the principle of consensus in WTO agenda-setting and rule-making is effectively undermined.

This is precisely what the U.S. wants. Its December 2025 reform submission argues that plurilateral agreements should allow “likeminded trading partners committed to fair and reciprocal trade” to strengthen ties “within the architecture of the WTO agreements,” with benefits limited to consenting parties — that is, on a non-MFN basis.

The paper warns that without a path for plurilaterals, the WTO is “not a viable forum for negotiating.” Read together with the Trade Policy Agenda’s call to reassess MFN, the logic is clear: plurilaterals are the vehicle through which the U.S. intends to displace MFN as the organising principle of the multilateral trading system. Members that cannot or choose not to join will simply be left out.

The second U.S. priority reinforces this trajectory. Washington is pressing developing countries to make permanent the moratorium on customs duties on electronic commerce transmissions. First adopted as a temporary measure in 1998, the moratorium was last renewed at MC13 in Abu Dhabi, where members agreed it would expire at MC14 or 31 March 2026. The U.S. now wants to lock it in permanently and expand the scope of digital goods and services beyond customs authorities.

The stakes are high and direct. UNCTAD has estimated that the moratorium costs developing countries up to $10 billion annually in foregone tariff revenue, with 95 per cent of the losses borne by developing countries. For many, customs duties constitute 10–30 per cent of total tax revenue — for some, over 50 per cent.

The primary beneficiaries are the large technology firms in developed countries that dominate cross-border digital trade. Making the moratorium permanent would formalise this revenue transfer and strip developing countries of policy space to regulate digital imports as the digital economy grows.

Both these issues — the IFA and the e-commerce moratorium — involve developing countries giving up something concrete (MFN treatment, consensus-based decision-making, effective say over agenda setting, customs revenue and regulatory autonomy) in exchange for nothing.

The U.S. is not offering concessions on agriculture, S&DT, or the longstanding mandated issues that matter to developing country Members. It is not proposing to fix the dispute settlement system it broke. It is leveraging reform to extract structural concessions that tilt the WTO’s institutional machinery in its favour, while pursuing its trade interests bilaterally.

Once plurilaterals are entrenched and the moratorium made permanent, the U.S. will have a freer hand to set the WTO agenda without negotiating with developing country and Least Developed Country members. S&DT, already under pressure from demands to end self-designation and narrow its application, will recede further as a meaningful principle and integral part of the negotiations.

The reform agenda, for all its complexity, is secondary to the structural question: will the WTO remain a consensus-based institution where MFN and consensus decision-making ensure the smallest member has a say? Or will it be refashioned into a platform for variable-geometry agreements where the powerful set the terms and the rest face compliance or exclusion?

Developing countries have fought for decades to preserve a multilateral trading system in which trade could serve as a tool for their development. That system is now under direct threat — not from its irrelevance, but from a deliberate strategy to hollow it out from within.

Chien Yen Goh and Kinda Mohamadieh are trade and investment lawyers at Third World Network (TWN) based in Geneva.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Kinda Mohamadieh and Daniel Uribe
GENEVA, Mar 28 2016 (IPS)

African countries have been active in concluding international investment treaties. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as of end 2013, 793 bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have been concluded by African countries, representing 27% of the total number of (BITs) worldwide.

Kinda Mohamadieh

Moreover, African countries are increasingly subject to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) cases, including claims that challenge the regulatory actions of host countries in a wide range of areas, including public services and race relations. Out of all cases registered under the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 16% of these cases. In 2014, cases against Sub-Saharan Africa amounted to 20% of the overall number of new cases brought under ICSID during that year.

Daniel Uribe

In response, the Africa Mining Vision is intended to promote added-value mechanisms within the region with a view to fully benefiting from the potential of mining. The approach reflected in the Africa Mining Vision is similar to policies several other developing countries have been considering in order to increase their participation on strategic sectors and enhance benefits from resource wealth in order to serve development and industrialization objectives. For example, several Latin American countries, including Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela, have applied active policies to regain the States policy space to develop, plan, regulate and actively participate in strategic sectors such as mining, water, energy and telecommunication in order to guarantee the use of natural resources for an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable development of the State.

Since 2006, several African countries, including Ghana, Congo DR, Zambia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar have taken actions in terms of regulatory or institutional changes, including amending laws or initiating the renegotiation of contracts with mining firms or indicated an intention to take one or both steps[1]. Graham points out as well that a number of countries are debating approaches to the conception of domestic/local content within the context of the ‘Africa Mining Vision’.

In the case of African countries, similar to other developing countries, the expansion of international investment agreements could carry significant risks to policy space and policy tools necessary for industrialization and development. In the case of African countries, this implies risks to the potential use of sectoral policies, such as policies in the extractive industries and the Africa Mining Vision, in order to support and promote African countries’ industrialization objectives.

Much of the recent debate and controversy in regard to the international investment protection regime have revolved around their implications on policy space that developing countries need to promote development. The rising number of ISDS cases revealed how the rules established under international investment agreements, and the way they have been expansively interpreted by private investment arbitrators, encroach on government’s ability to regulate in the public interest.

The majority of the ISDS cases registered at ICSID are in the gas, oil, and mining sector; out of all the ISDS cases registered at ICSID until 2014, 26% were concentrated in the oil, gas, and mining sectors. This figure is 35% for the year 2014 alone. By contrast, in the year 2000, there were only three pending ICSID cases related to oil, mining, or gas[2].Through resorting to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms, investors are challenging a broad range of government measures, not only challenging outright expropriation. Investors brought cases in relation to revocations of licenses (e.g., in mining, telecommunications, tourism), alleged breaches of investment contracts, alleged irregularities in public tenders, changes to domestic regulatory frameworks (gas, nuclear energy, marketing of gold, currency regulations), withdrawal of previously granted subsidies, tax measures and other regulatory interventions[3].

Similarly, ISDS have increasingly been used by investors in the extractive industries in several African countries, challenging governmental reform action, such as policy against speculation in the oil industry as well as tax measures. For example, Vanoil Ltd., a Canadian oil company, threatened to bring a case against Kenya after failure to secure extension of a pair of production-sharing contracts for onshore oil exploration in Kenya. African Petroleum Gambia Limited brought a case (contract-based) against Gambia disputing termination of hydrocarbon licenses for exploration of oil. Total E&P Uganda BV (Dutch), subsidiary of French company Total S.A., brought a claim in relation to a stamp duty imposed by the Uganda Revenue Authority on the acquisition of stakes from London-listed Tullow Oil[4].

The problem of the investment protection regime is multilayered and is rooted in the following deficiencies: an imbalance in the provisions of the investment treaties (including broad definitions of investment and investor, free transfer of capital, rights to establishment, the national treatment and the most-favoured-nation (MFN) clauses, fair and equitable treatment, protection from direct and indirect expropriation and prohibition of performance requirements), which focus on the investors‘ rights and neglect investors‘ responsibilities, while often lacking express recognition of the need to safeguard the host states‘ regulatory authority; vague treaty provisions, which allow for expansive interpretation by arbitrators and for the rise of systemic bias in favour of the investors in the resolution of disputes under investment treaty law.

Such trends are often not in line with the original intent of the States negotiating the treaty; the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, which is led by a network of arbitrators dominated by private lawyers, whose expertise often stem from commercial law. Arbitrators have asserted jurisdiction over a wide range of issues, including regulatory measures on which constitutional courts had made a decision in accordance with the national law.

The way the ISDS system has operated so far generates deep concerns in regard to democratic governance and accountability; the lack of transparency and available public information on ISDS procedures limit the space of public participation and accountability. Currently 608 ISDS cases are known.

However, since most international investment agreements allow for fully confidential arbitration, the actual number is likely to be higher. Within this context, claims or threats by investors to bring forward a claim against a particular state are increasing.

Several countries, both developed and developing, have been reviewing their approach to investment treaties, including looking at ways of reducing their legal liability under bilateral investment treaties (BITs), especially given the surge in investor-to-state dispute cases (ISDS) from these treaties.

According to the UNCTAD, at least 40 countries and four regional integration organizations are currently or have been recently revising their model of international investment agreements[5], and at least 60 countries have developed or are developing new model IIAs since 2012[6]. UNCTAD points out that ”the question is not whether to reform or not, but about the what, how and extent of such reform“.

Developing countries seeking to reform their approach to investment protection treaties have reviewed their existing international investment agreements and their implications. Some have set a moratorium on signing and ratifying new agreements during the time of the review. Some countries like South Africa, Indonesia, Ecuador and Bolivia chose to withdraw from all or some treaties. South Africa chose to replace BITs with a new national Investment Act entitled Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill, that clarifies investment protection standards consistent with the South African constitution. Indonesia chose to develop a new model BIT, so did India.. Ecuador reverted to investment contracts as the main legal instrument defining the relation with investors, including setting clear obligations on the investor, such as performance requirements. Some states are pursuing alternatives at the regional level, through developing model rules that take into consideration the developmental concerns

[1] Yao Graham, “Escaping the Winner’s Curse – The Africa Mining Vision (AMV) and some challenges of the international trade and investment regime”, Third World Network Africa, available online at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/clusters/international/devconf/participants/papers/graham_-_escaping_the_winners_curse.pdf .

[2] See: Sarah Anderson & Manuel Perez Rocha, “Mining for Profits in International Tribunals: Lessons for the Trans-Pacific Partnership”, Institute for Policy Studies, April 2013.

[3] Source: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2013d3_en.pdf (2012).

[4]Source: Reuters Africa, “Uganda: Total seeks arbitration over Uganda tax dispute” (March 22, 2015) by Elias Biryabarema, available at: http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFKBN0MR0SI20150331?sp=true .

[5]UNCTAD World Investment Report (2014) & UNCTAD IIA issue note 3, “Reform of the IIA Regime: Four Paths of Action and a Way Forward” (June 2014) & UNCTAD World Investment Report – Overview (2015).

[6]UNCTAD, “Taking Stock of IIA Reform”, UNCTAD Issues Note (March 2016)

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By Kinda Mohamadieh
GENEVA, Apr 6 2015 (IPS)

The world’s attention turned to the practices of vulture funds after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court opinion in the NML Capital vs Argentina case, which forbids the country from making payments on its restructured debt.

Argentina had defaulted in 2001 and went through two rounds of negotiations to restructure its debt, both in 2005 and 2010. In June 2014, the court ordered Argentina to pay the ‘vulture funds’ that held out and did not accept the terms of the debt swaps.

Kinda Mohamadieh

The vulture funds had held out with the aim of achieving what amounts to a 1,600 percent return on their original investment. The funds concerned had purchased the Argentinian bonds in 2008 at 48 million dollars and the court ruling ordered Argentina to pay them 832 million dollars.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz noted that this was “the first time in history that a country was willing and able to pay its creditors, but was blocked by a judge from doing so”.

While this case brought the term ‘vulture funds’ into the public sphere, the predatory practices of these entities did not start with Argentina.

According to a former U.N. independent expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related financial obligations of states on the full enjoyment of all human rights, the term ‘vulture funds’ describes “private commercial entities that acquire, either by purchase, assignments or some other form of transaction, defaulted or distressed debts, and sometimes actual court judgments, with the aim of achieving higher returns.”

Basically, vulture funds are hedge funds whose modus operandi focuses on three main steps including: (1) purchasing distressed debt on the secondary market at deep discounts far less than its face value; (2) refusing to participate in restructuring agreements with the indebted state; and (3) pursuing full value of the debt often at face value plus interest, arrears and penalties, including through litigation, seizure of assets or penalties.“The African Development Bank has reported that at least twenty heavily indebted poor countries have been threatened with or have been subjected to legal actions by commercial creditors and vulture funds since 1999”

Many developing countries have been exposed to the predatory practices of vulture funds, especially African and Latin American countries.

The African Development Bank has reported that at least twenty heavily indebted poor countries have been threatened with or have been subjected to legal actions by commercial creditors and vulture funds since 1999. These countries include Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, as well as Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Peru was targeted by NML Capital in the year 2000. According to media reports, the fund spent almost four years in the courts to win a ruling that forced Peru to settle for almost 56 million dollars on distressed debt, which the fund had initially bought for 11.8 million dollars.

The African Development Bank has documented that up until the year 2007, 25 judgments in favour of vulture funds had yielded nearly one billion dollars. Out of this amount, 72 percent of the judgments have been against African countries. The reported number of outstanding cases against debtor countries has doubled since 2004.

According to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 54 court cases were instituted against 12 heavily indebted poor countries between 1998 and 2008. The IMF estimates that in some cases claims by vulture funds constitute as much as 12 to 13 percent of a country’s gross domestic product.  The World Bank estimates that nearly one-third of countries that are eligible for debt relief and other poverty alleviation programmes are the targets of nearly 26 vulture funds.

Concerned about the extent of the threat posed by such predatory practices and their systemic implications, several international authorities and multilateral institutions have voiced their concern about the matter.

The African Development Bank has warned that by precluding debt relief and costing millions in legal expenses, these vulture funds undermine the development of the most vulnerable African countries.

In June 2014, the heads of state and government of the Group of 77 and China, in their declaration issued on the occasion of the ‘For a New World Order for Living Well’ summit held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, reiterated the importance of “not allowing vulture funds to paralyse the debt restructuring efforts of developing countries” and stressed that “these funds should not supersede the state’s right to protect its people under international law.”

The IMF had cautioned that upholding the decision against Argentina would harm future sovereign debt restructuring attempts. In 2013, the IMF stated that “if upheld, [the Court of Appeals decision] would likely give hold-out creditors greater leverage and make the debt restructuring process more complicated”.

In 2007, G8 finance ministers had expressed concern about actions of some litigating creditors against heavily indebted poor countries, and agreed to work together to identify measures to tackle this problem based on the work of the Paris Club.

In September 2014, a resolution on the activities of vulture funds and the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of states on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights, was presented by Argentina and adopted at the 27^th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council which took place in Geneva.

It is also worth noting that the 26^th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2014 had adopted a resolution titled ‘Elaboration of an international legally binding instrument on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Respect to Human Rights’.

This resolution sets in place a process of negotiations towards an international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and their liability in the area of human rights. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

* This column is based on a longer version published in published in the South Centre’s South Bulletin 83 of 12 February 2015.

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