Study On The Authority Reform Of WTO Secretariat

The Marrakesh Agreement clearly put forward that the WTO Secretariat is the daily facility organization of WTO. During the last decades since the establishment of WTO, the Secretariat and the Director-General have both played an important role in forming and developing the multilateral trading regime. As a daily facility organization, the Secretariat has no decision-making on specific issues and neither could it represent the individual interest of any member. Instead, the Secretariat represent the transnational interest behind the multilateral trading regime. With the increasing needs to reform the system of WTO, more and more scholars notice that as an organization that counts for much,the Secretariat has been largely underestimated and the its functions has been limited.As we discussed before, the Secretariat represent the interests of the whole multilateral trading regime, while being authorized no decision-making right,which makes it hard for the Secretariat to be involved in protecting the multilateral trading regime. The part of Secretariat, as the defendant for the WTO laws and agreements, has become weaker and weaker. Although his fact has been noticed and observed for some time, there is still no such consensus has been reached so far. For the very first and the most important, as an member-driven organization, it's not easy for WTO to authorize the decision-making right to the Secretariat. Even when some of the members are in favor of this suggestion,it would be a game of interests between members which will make this question be in vain in the end. Additionally, the Secretariat reform also meets huge practically obstacles such as the limited budget. All those questions need to be discussed in details.The importance of reforming the Secretariat is doubtful. The report”The Future of the WTO:Addressing Institutional Challenges in the New Millennium”, published in the year of 2005 by the consultive board which was named by the Director-General at that time, describes the role of the Secretariat and the Director-General. Furthermore, it put forward some suggestion on the reform. This report absolutely helps in waking people up to think about the Secretariat reform problem.This dissertation would analyze the role of the Secretariat in the whole WTO reform which comes to the conclusion that extending the rights of the Secretariat is necessary. Besides, the obstacles in reforming the Secretariat would be discussed as to understand the way to apply these reform measures.This dissertation has been put into five chapters. The first chapter start with the current situation of the Secretariat. By analyzing the relevant rules and agreements, it presents the jurisprudential basis and reach the conclusion that the contradiction between the current role and its legal authority absolutely hinder the development of WTO. In the second chapter, the motivation of reform is presented from the view of two sides. The third chapter emphasis the regime background which includes the “member-driven” hierarchy and the internal governance system. It comes to the obstacles of the Secretariat reform in both realistic and institutional angle. Based on the research in the last three chapters, the fourth chapter gives some ideas and specific suggestion on the extension of the Secretariat's power and the further reform. Additionally, making the role of the Director-General more clear is mentioned in this part. Finally, the concluding analysis and thoughts are presented.China is the member of WTO while also is a developing country. The reform of the WTO, especially the reform of the Secretariat, seems vital for the interest of China, as it can influence China in negotiation, dispute settlement, trade policy review and many other aspects. Paying more attention to this topic is meaningful to China both practically and theoretically.