The Geneva Consensus

Globalization Under Pressure

Globalization offers a new model for trade and social progress. Beginning in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, booming world trade overtook an international community still operating under principles established in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference. Today’s trade struggles spring from an absence of contemporary “global governance.”

Issues in efforts to establish sound governance center on “leadership, efficiency and legitimacy.” The G20, the UN and NGOs form a “triangle of coherence” confronting these challenges. Before anything else, they have to establish core mutual values. Today’s multilateral trading system could serve as a world governance mechanism if those parties involved can reach workable agreements. The World Trade Organization (WTO) can help actualize the “Geneva Consensus,” which seeks to help emerging economies benefit from open markets.

Trade Turbulence

Global trade has exploded thanks to improved communication, transportation and information technology. Production value chains are growing longer and expanding around the world. Influence is shifting: In the 1990s, developed countries’ trade with one...