a missed opportunity for genuine debate on trade, globalization and reforming the wto

Proponents of high-level panels generally invoke two reasons in favor of the exercise. First, in the face of political deadlock, a daring yet objective analysis by high-profile experts may create momentum for reform and unlock the political stalemate. Second, periodic review by unbiased, yet knowledgeable outsiders may sharpen the effectiveness of an organization and move it beyond the short-term perspective of those engrained in the system. Although only time can tell, the odds that the Sutherland report will meet either of these objectives are low. The report is neither experts rocking the politically stuck boat,1 nor outsiders blowing new life into the WTO. Although the Sutherland report offers a truly thoughtful and interesting analysis, it is largely a defense of the status quo by WTO insiders.2 The report nibbles around the edges of the WTO’s foundational problems – such as the discontents of globalization, the lack of coherence between liberalization and the provision of public goods and the imbalance between the WTO’s automatic judiciary and its deadlocked political branch – only to fixate, eventually, on typically insider concerns and solutions (such as regional trade agreements, observership status in WTO meetings, increasing the role and budget of the WTO Secretariat and the creation of a senior officials’ consultative body to smooth the WTO political process and an expert group reviewing specific dispute findings to rein-in the WTO’s judicial branch). The overall message of the report is an unabated defense of the WTO largely unchanged3 and, for the most part, to be kept safely secluded from other international