The WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference, held in Nairobi on December 2015, concluded with the adoption of the “Nairobi Package”, several ministerial decisions on agriculture, cotton and least-developed countries. The Nairobi Package includes a historic decision to eliminate agricultural export subsidies, the most important reform of international trade rules in agriculture since the WTO was founded. The biggest disagreement among WTO members, however, goes beyond specific substantive issues: it is about the future of the Doha agenda and the WTO’s negotiating function itself. While developing countries wished to continue with negotiations, industrialized nations, chief among them the United States, called for an end to the Doha Round. The Nairobi Ministerial Declaration also acknowledges that WTO members “have different views” on the future of the Doha Round negotiations but notes the “strong commitment of all members to advance negotiations on the remaining Doha issues”.
  In this situation, there have been significant changes in international trade since recent decades. First, trade growth has been anaemic since 2010. Already before the 2008 Global Crisis hit, the rate of growth of the ratio of global trade to GDP had slowed considerably. Most recent data show trade values declining. Second, plurilateral negotiations are rapidly widespread in the WTO. In particular, developed members have pushed for more sectoral deals like the ITA-II. Currently, a similar deal on tariff reductions for environmental goods is being negotiated. More sectoral tariff liberalization of this sort might be a good area to pursue. Along the same lines, the trade in services talks going on in Geneva could be brought formally into the WTO framework.
  Third, at the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, which is expected to affect a significant impact on global trade. At the heart of the Paris climate agreement are national-level plans, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Although these INDCs are voluntary, they are considered a critical first step for an agreement designed to progressively ratchet up national commitments to collectively limit a global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial age levels. It is now time that we have to design a harmonization between trade and environments.
  Finally, increasing anger over globalization would rapidly spread. The unhappiness is evident in Britain's vote in June 2016 to leave the European Union and in the U.S. presidential campaign of Republican Donald Trump.
  Under the above situations, the study suggested the following as new directions of Korea’s multilateral trade policy. First, New multilateral trade policies should aim to spread benefits of trade liberalization out whole people, particularly focusing on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the middle class. Small businesses often find the playing field for trade is not level. While the market is generally open with no tariffs, small businesses face a strong thicket of domestic regulations and non-tariff barriers, which are hardly to be overcome by SMEs. In this respect it is important to effectuate the trade facilitation agreement at 2013 Bali Ministerial as soon as possible.
  Second, Korea should prepare for the proliferation of plurilateral negotiations led by developed countries. With the WTO now reaching 164 members, we will rarely agree on all aspects of even one issue. That means we will likely also have to be flexible on who participates. In some cases, we will have to work on trade deals between smaller groups of countries as well―so-called plurilateral agreements. At the same time, it is highly projected that various plurilateral negotiations appear in near future within the framework of the WTO, since developed countries, in particular, the U.S. pursued continuously several plurilateral negotiations such as EGA, TiSA, Fishery subsidies. Prior to joining the plurilateral negotiations, a detailed examination for the economic impacts of plurilateral negotiations should be completed.
  Third, it should fully consider free trade’s negative impact on climate. Climate change is the biggest sustainable development challenge that the international communityhas had to tackle to date. Korea joined 175 countries in signing the United Nations Paris climate agreement setting a path forward to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, it is time that we should think how to harmonize trade policies and environmental protection policies. We have to think about environmental subsidies as green subsidies, which are allowed in the WTO system.
  Finally, Korea also should pursue the harmonization among bilateral, plurilateral, and multilateral trade policies. Particularly, long-run multilateral trade policies need to pursue the harmonization of preferential ROOs consistent with WTO rules.
  To break the current deadlock of WTO negotiations, both developed and developing countries must commit to working together to prevent the re-emergence of protectionism, and strengthening of the rules based trading system, in a way that is fair, development oriented and inclusive. This is the only basis to resolve the current crisis in the multilateral trading system and create a more secure and peaceful world. Losing the WTO as an effective forum for trade liberalization would be a setback for free trade. Despite its existing successes, there is much more the WTO could achieve, as trade liberalization is most beneficial when carried out multilaterally. It is therefore in the interests of all governments to make the WTO work by committing to trade liberalization in relation to their own protectionism. Trade is critical to development and growth. The world needs a WTO that can effectively develop global rules on the issues that matter to developed and developing countries alike. Whether Doha is dead or alive, the WTO needs to spur growth and support development.