Informal Learning and WTO Renewal. Using Thematic Sessions to Create More Opportunities for Dialogue

Thematic sessions are a broad class of meetings that are sponsored by or associated with a WTO body in some way, but that are not part of its formal meetings. The WTO held over 100 such sessions in the three years from 2017 to 2019. They bring dynamism to WTO by allowing committees to consider what works well and what does not under an agreement, including by sharing experiences with implementation, and helping to define what is next on the agenda. This paper analyses how such meetings are organized, focusing on how themes are chosen, participation (who speaks), the degree of transparency, and funding, drawing on a database of all thematic sessions from the beginning of 2017 until the end of 2019. Enhanced use of thematic sessions can contribute to strengthening connections between Geneva delegations and capitals.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) held over 100 thematic sessions in the three years from 2017 to 2019. A vital part of WTO renewal and improving its working practices is making better use of such informal deliberation among Members building on innovations in holding meetings during the pandemic (Low and Wolfe, 2020). I use 'thematic session' to refer to a broad class of meetings that are sponsored by or associated with a WTO body in some way, but that are not part of its formal meetings. The sessions often include presentations by the Secretariat, governments, other international organizations, business, NGOs, and academics. Such sessions ranged from a 2017 Workshop on Investment Facilitation for Development through a 2018 Symposium on the Agriculture Policy Landscape to a 2019 Experience-Sharing Workshop on Implementation of the Customs Valuation Agreement.
WTO bodies have an important operational agenda flowing from their agreements, an agenda that may inhibit policy dialogue on substantive issues in their domain. Members find it valuable to share their experiences with implementation of the WTO agreements that are now over 25 years old. Given how much world trade has changed during the life of the WTO, they also find it valuable to discuss what adaptations and new rules may be needed. Such informal discussions can identify emerging problems that may need anything from a clarification of a committee's guidelines to negotiations on new rules. But some committees never hold thematic sessions, participation by capital-based officials from developing countries is uneven, and too few sessions have a forward-looking agenda. In its June 2020 statement (WTO, 2020) the Ottawa Group called for strengthening the relationship with stakeholders, including the business community on possible responses to the COVID-19 health and economic crises as well as broader WTO reform efforts. Thematic sessions are one way to do this, but more active leadership will be needed: deepening engagement with stakeholders was a low priority for respondents to our survey of the trade community (Fiorini et al., 2020b), and respondents from Ottawa Group members are statistically similar to all other respondents.
This paper is about how the WTO can encourage institutional learning (Wolfe, 2018). Enhanced use of thematic sessions can contribute to strengthening the pipeline between Geneva and capitals, and to better understanding in Geneva of what is happening on the ground. But achieving that objective requires making better use of this tool. This paper has two objectives. The first is to take stock of current practices, which begins with an inventory of recent thematic sessions followed by analysis of the variations types of session observed, how themes are chosen, participation, the degree of transparency, and funding. The text box below then compares WTO to other international organizations. The second objective is to draw lessons from recent experience as a basis for recommendations on how to improve the use of thematic sessions.

Taking stock of practice
Thematic sessions are informal deliberative opportunities that are helpful for a committee, but not part of its operational work. Before trying to take stock of practice an inventory is needed of sessions that meet that simple screen. We systematically checked every WTO body starting with its landing page on the WTO website, looking at news releases, the events calendar, annual reports and minutes. We also looked at the WTO news archive, and the WTO twitter feed, and we used the general search engine to identify potential sessions. The descriptors we looked for included: informal, educational, workshop, information, forum, exercise, leadership dialogue, symposium, experience-sharing, dedicated, discussion group and of course thematic.
We found 105 thematic sessions that met our screen. The number of thematic sessions seems to be increasing, with comparatively more thematic sessions held in 2019 than in 2017. Table 1 is a summary of our findings of all such meetings held in 2017-19 categorized as either implementation (sharing experience on existing agreements) or next steps (consideration of new issues, or what's next on the committee's agenda). Some sessions are both. A detailed list can be found in the Appendix.
Nearly three quarters of the thematic sessions held by committees are based on sharing experiences in implementation of existing obligations or a technical aspect of the committee's domain. While not as prevalent, there are also sessions on trade-related issues not now well-covered at WTO, or new global trends or initiatives: for example, a workshop on Gender Based Analysis and Trade, held on 16 March 2018, or the Global Trade and Blockchain Forum held on 2 December 2019.
Thematic sessions can also be a short-term alternative to negotiations. In the absence of progress on the Harmonization Work Programme (HWP), the chair of the Committee on Rules of Origin proposed in 2014 to initiate an 'educational exercise' to share experiences and learn more about the nonpreferential rules of origin currently being applied by some WTO Members. The first session held as a 'dedicated item' in the committee took place in 2015. Subsequently the committee held a series of educational exercises to better understand what actually happens featuring presentations by the World Customs Organization, the WTO Secretariat, the International Chamber of Commerce, UNCTAD, the International Trade Centre, capital-based officials, and firms. Presentations at the 2015 meeting were circulated in a restricted room document series, but detailed reports are in the committee minutes. The programs and presentations for the 2016 and 2018 meetings are on the web, however, and afterwards the Secretariat prepared detailed summary documents. 1. While the committee held other informal sessions in 2019, there were none on this topic, although it is possible that these sessions Box: stylized facts on the use of thematic sessions outside the WTO (by Christian Bluth) The OECD International Organization Partnership has been doing work on the structure, decision making processes, legal and policy instruments and budget and staff of international organisations (OECD, 2019a). While that project has not addressed our exact question, from interviews with the OECD Secretariat it is clear that equivalents to thematic sessions are also used in other international organisations. In some cases, these sessions are comparable to the practice at the WTO, in other cases they are substantially different.
A key determinant of the design and the use of thematic sessions across international organisation seems to be the size and autonomy of the Secretariat. If an organisation has a larger and more autonomous Secretariat, it is more likely to take the initiative in organising thematic sessions. In institutions with a weaker Secretariat, the agenda is more likely to be determined by the member states. The WTO Secretariat is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum: while it has large analytical capability, country-led institutions do not have much room for autonomous decisions. In cases with a weak Secretariat, committee work tends to focus on current issues. In contrast Secretariat-driven institutions, such as the OECD, tend to address a more forward-looking work agenda. They are also more likely to accompany any thematic sessions with analytical reports that are compiled by Secretariat officials.
Involving stakeholders is widespread in other international organisations, for example in those working on financial or environmental regulation. Stakeholders could include academic experts, NGOs and business associations. Thematic sessions in organisations with a large Secretariat are usually well documented through an associated report, a dedicated webpage and making presentation materials available to committee members. Transparency is also increasing; many organisations make such materials available to the public in general. Such sessions are usually appreciated by the member state delegations, according to surveys that evaluate the usefulness of thematic sessions to the work of the committee in question.
It is also a widespread practice to bring in officials from the capitals of member states, but as at WTO the costs seem to be the responsibility of countries not the Secretariat. Participation of capital-based officials can help to address two problems: first, it may bridge a disconnect between work going on in international organisations and awareness of that work at the national level. Ideally, capital-based officials recognise the importance of workstreams in international organisation for their own agenda but leveraging thematic sessions helps to increase awareness. Second, bringing in capital-based officials can also help to overcome silo thinking within different parts of national administrations. Thematic sessions can provide a background that brings together different agencies and help them bridge their sometimes disparate work on related issues. facilitated progress during that year on simplification of preferential ROOs for LDCs.
When looking for thematic sessions our desk research was supplemented by confidential interviews in October and November 2019 with WTO officials in all the main areas of work, and with some committee chairs. The purpose of interviews was to see if we had missed a session, to verify that what we found did fit the screen, to seek details not available through desk research, and to solicit informed views on the purpose and value of such sessions.
We had a standard set of questions about each session that fit the screen. We asked about the theme for a session, and whose idea it was, Secretariat or Members? Next, who made presentations, are they available online, was the session reported in committee minutes, and is there any evidence of impact on the subsequent work of the committee? We looked for evidence of engagement with officials from capitals and stakeholders including business, and we were interested in fundingwas the budget for the session sufficient to bring to WTO the people who care, people who know, people who are responsible for the issues in capitals? The following sub-sections analyze variation in how meetings are organized, which is related to (1) the type of session, (2) how themes are chosen, (3) participation (who speaks), (4) the degree of transparency, and (5) funding.

Types of sessions
The simplest way to have an informal meeting is for a Member to invite a small group of delegates and experts to come to its mission to discuss a topic of its choosing. In their work on rules of origin, for example, the Swiss have invited firms and experts to their mission along with the 15 or so WTO members that they work with. Most such meetings are not in our screen. More ambitious meetings are harder to organize. We found six models or types of thematic session that vary by how they are organized.
1. Standing working groups with a built-in agenda for informal discussions: 6 events.
Although not called thematic sessions, they function in a similar way, with an easier process for reaching a consensus on topics and speakers. There are two such examples under the Committee on Anti-Dumping Practices (ADP), for example. The first is the Working Group on Implementation, which meets twice a year, with participation of experts involved in the actual implementation of the rules. In 2015 the Group agreed on a new approach for work based on a topic-centred discussion, a discussant assisting the Chair to facilitate the informal dialogue, deformalized submissions and a general non-attributable summary report circulated by the Secretariat following the meeting. The aim is that Members continue to learn from each other about their respective practices in this area. The Informal Group on Anti-Circumvention functions in a similar way. The ADP minutes record that a meeting took place, the topics discussed, and proposed topics for the next meeting, but nothing more, and the presentations are not available on the web.
2. Informal meetings that require little organization: 12 events.
One Member makes a proposal and seeks Committee endorsement, and the Secretariat assists in providing logistical support and in providing the names of potential speakers. For example, our database has two sessions under the Safeguards committee in 2019. Trade remedy is very sensitive, and it is hard to get consensus for thematic sessions, so interested delegates just do it on the margins. The Safeguards sessions were informal discussion group meetings open to all Members. The idea was to provide a broader perspective, removed from discussion of individual cases, and to focus more on each other's experiences.
3. Sessions that are part of a committee work plan: 23 events.
For example, the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) committee develops a plan for thematic sessions as part of its Triennial Review process; these sessions are relatively straightforward to organize. 4. Committee consensus that delegates wish to discuss a particular issue: 4 events.
Some thematic sessions emerge slowly and arduously in committee discussions. There can be more resistance when a session seems likely to consider whether there is a need for something new. That is why it is harder to get agreement for the Secretariat to organize a session as opposed to a Member just doing it and paying. The numbers of each of these six types of event are summarized in Table 2.

Choosing a theme
Organizing a thematic session is never easy, but it seems an element of forward planning helps. For example, one part of the TBT Triennial Review is a systematic discussion of implementation challenges and emerging issues where the committee would benefit from an informal discussion. The result is a three-year plan for thematic sessions that makes organizing the sessions easier for the Secretariat and facilitates planning for attendance by capital-based officials. The two ADP working groups now have a built-in process for considering themes for future meetings. At each meeting of the Trade Facilitation committee Members are asked what new themes they would like next for the informal meetings on implementation of the Agreement. In a new step the chair of the Committee on Government Procurement has proposed that Members plan a thematic session each year.
At the other end of the spectrum is CTE. The committee has no WTO Agreement to implement and struggles with continuing debates on its proper domain. Thematic sessions might help to promote learning on the links between trade and the environment but reaching consensus on the theme for a session is arduous. A thematic session can represent an agreement by a committee that it will address a topic, which is the part that is hard for CTE. Some delegates worry that a discussion of anything related to climate change, for example, is a slippery slope towards consideration of matters best left for UNFCCC. And yet thematic sessions can be an important part of a committee's work program when delegates are uncertain how to handle issues, which is why the FAST group has been trying to encourage more thematic-type discussion in the CTE on trade and sustainability issues.

Transparency
The diversity of types and purposes of thematic sessions is reflected in the available information about their programs, presentations, and what is discussed. In some cases, presentations are circulated as restricted room documents and there is no detail in the minutes because such sessions are held only for the committee. Part of the purpose of other thematic sessions seems to be educational, as suggested by the opportunity for outsiders to register to attend (e.g. the June 2019 agriculture symposium). The presentations made at thematic sessions are often posted online, and some sessions are livestreamed, or a video or audio record is posted  Informal Learning and WTO Renewal later. Often summary reports of varying detail are circulated to a committee, and sometimes what was said in an informal discussion is recorded in the minutes. Other times the Chair reports orally. For example, many workshops take place on issues related to the work of the CTE that do not fit our screenthey took place outside Genevabut often the organizers of such sessions report to the committee, which is reflected in the minutes. Whether or not the Chair reports for the minutes, the prime value of a thematic session is the thing itself, but general WTO transparency is served the more information is released. On the other hand, some delegates worry that a committee discussion can be used by the Appellate Body to interpret the rulesin TBT the question of whether to include a disclaimer on the legal status of guidelines for Good Regulatory Practice (GRP) has held up approval for years, but the committee continues to advance its understanding of the issues through thematic sessions on GRP (WTO, 2019b). The ADP Working Group on Implementation has a rigid mandate to discuss non-binding recommendations on best practices. On one occasion the Appellate Body apparently mentioned something that had been discussed in the working group as if it created a rule, so delegates became cautious, which is perhaps why there is now no reporting in the ADP minutes of what was discussed in the working group.

Participation
One reason to have thematic sessions is to bring to Geneva the people who care, people who know, people who are responsible in capitals. But who actually attend thematic sessions? A definitive answer is impossible, because the Secretariat does not record attendance at WTO meetings. Anecdotal information suggests that the Members with the largest delegations are the most active participants, smaller delegations less so, and LDC participation is infrequent. Most meetings are closed, but some allow outsiders to attend if they register, as was the case with 22 of the sessions in our databasealthough registration itself can be burdensome due to WTO security procedures.
It is easier to track who speakssee Table 3. We found evidence of speakers from other international organizations, business, NGOs, and academics. Committees vary thoughsome have few outside speakers (TBT) while others have many. For example, at the Council for Trade in Services (CTS) Thematic Seminar on 'Mode 4 at Work' in 2018 speakers came from international organizations, industry, and academia along with capital-based officials.
The continuum extends from all speakers being from the Secretariat and/or Members through large participation of outsiders. When there is uncertainty, or when a committee is trying to build awareness, delegates may want to hear from people with on the ground experience. When the session is technical delegates may only want to include practitioners if no outsiders have the required expertise.
As we see in Table 3, over 40 per cent of speakers in thematic sessions are either Geneva-based or come from other international organizations. Thematic sessions typically have capital-based speakers, and virtually every session has speakers from the leading traders, but only 53 sessions had speakers from non-G20 countries and only 18 sessions had speakers from LDCs. Put differently, barely a third of the total number of capital-based speakers came from non-G20 Members. Less than 20 per cent of sessions featured LDC speakers. The largest LDC participation as one might expect was in Trade Facilitation and Trade and Development but LDC participants also spoke more than once in events in Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), services, customs valuation, and environment. The results are consistent with measures of participation in committees (Wolfe, 2020b) and the dispute settlement system (Fiorini et al., 2020a).
While business participation is significant, it would be better for Members to have even more private sector engagement, because they are grounded. Inviting the private sector can be tricky, however, if the Secretariat is seen as simply providing a megaphone for business to talk to Members. One solution is sessions organized by business at the annual Public Forum, or with side events organized by firms in cooperation with Members.

Funding
One reason for skewed patterns of participation, and perhaps for the limited number of events in some bodies, is funding. There is little information available on who pays for most thematic sessions. My understanding is that funding comes in six ways. First, some events, and some logistics, can be covered from the regular budget. Second, speakers based in Geneva incur no expenses. Third, international organizations and speakers from large firms pay for themselves. Fourth, some funds come from the WTO Institute for Training and Technical Cooperation (ITTC) to fund travel costs for academic experts, NGOs and some capital-based officials (WTO, 2019a, para 167). Fifth, sometimes one or more Members provide funds for an event. Finally, if Members suggest a speaker from their country, they are expected to pay the costs, which leads to more developed country than developing country speakers from capitals. The two extremes are in the Rules area where the costs come out of regular funds, in part because there is no need to bring in outside experts, and the Trade Facilitation Committee, which has a dedicated trust fund that sponsors attendance at its sessions by an official from any developing country Member that needs it. Most committees have neither a dedicated trust fund nor a budget for informal sessions.
The effort to find money can delay the organization of a thematic session by many months and can lead to further delays as the organizers try to balance who wishes to speak, the availability of funds, and the agendaspeakers who live close to Geneva are cheaper than ones who have to travel some distance, while regional and gender balance can be difficult depending on the speakers Members propose. Finding money from technical assistance funds is difficult and time-consuming because of the current model, which favors university-like training, which may not be the best way to learn how to use a committee. When a thematic session is held back to back with a committee, it offers a great training opportunity if officials are able to come to the committee, participate in a thematic session, and attend lectures, but the available training funds are often earmarked for a standard classroom experience.

Lessons from recent experience
What can be done to improve the use of thematic sessions? I have two sets of recommendations, first on substance and then on process.

Substance: Other possible themes for thematic sessions
My focus is the infrastructure for making good use of thematic sessions more than the substance of what should be discussed, but the database shows some substantive gaps. For example, there could be more 'next steps' thematic sessions on new issues designed to identify and think about how to address systemically important negative spillover impacts of non-tariff policies. I do not mean that WTO should try to compete with the OECD, a think tank with a huge staff. WTO is a forum for solving problems, and its discussions are never theoretical, but that leaves considerable scope to use thematic sessions for learning. I suggest four sorts of issue for more thematic sessions.
First is drawing lessons from clusters of specific trade concerns (STCs) in committees. When a large number of questions concern certain issues, it can be a signal that members should be considering whether new or clarified disciplines might be needed in that area. Analysis of STCs in the TBT committee is said to have led to a number of the sectoral annexes to Chapter 8 of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, later carried over into United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). WTO thematic sessions can be opportunities for all members to learn about the possible need for new rules.
Second is an issue that crosses many committees, regional trade agreements (RTAs). Every committee could organize thematic discussion of systemic issues posed by RTAs and of what can be learned from the operation of RTAs in their respective policy areas (Hoekman, 2018). RTAs may pursue innovative approaches towards cooperation on trade policies. A regular focus on discussion of national experiences with different RTAs would not only improve transparency, but more important, support a process of learning about approaches that might be multilateralized.
A third set of issues that crosses many committees is ex post discussion of the consequences of dispute settlement decisions. Surveillance by the Dispute Settlement Body is not the only avenue for follow-up. Any committee could decide that the consequences of recent decisions have raised issues for its Agreement that the committee might wish to discuss informally in a thematic session. For example, the SPS Committee Thematic Session on Fall Armyworm held on 19 March 2019 began with a Secretariat presentation on the implications of dispute settlement reports relevant to the operation of the SPS agreement.
Fourth is a set of issues in one committee. The SCM committee does not hold thematic sessions, but maybe such sessions could be a means to supplement the woeful notification record in this area. Informal discussion of the conceptual challenges with subsidies transparency might help (Hoekman and Nelson 2020). In the short term, if agreement on binding rules is not possible, work can proceed on developing more informal discipline on subsidies based on information and dialogue (Shaffer et al. 2015). Here are five possibilities: 1. The Director-General's annual monitoring report no longer provides data on general economic support (WTO, 2019c, p. section 3.7). The reports originally captured responses to the financial crisis when just knowing the facts helped countries avoid an over-reaction. The report should now be capturing responses to the uncertainty associated with the trade policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Wolfe, 2020a). It is not. The stated reason for dropping the section is the dismal response to the Director-General's questionnaire asking for data on general economic support measures, but the problem is not mechanical. Do Members agree on why general economic support should be tracked? If the problem is a lack of consensus on the definitions and impact of such support, then perhaps a thematic session in the SCM committee could help. 2. The OECD has recently done important work estimating the incidence of subsidies in the semiconductor and aluminum industries (OECD, 2019c, 2019b). An informal briefing on that work might help the SCM committee to think about current notification requirements, which do not pick up all the various forms of support governments give firms in these global value chains. Such a session might also consider whether an index like the OECD Producer Support Estimate (PSE) might be useful for industrial subsidies

Infrastructure for thematic sessions: Process improvements
The second set of improvements to the use of thematic sessions concern process. The following suggestions might best take the form of a General Council decision. Committees need no permission to hold thematic sessions, but some central actions would be helpful.
• To increase the confidence of Members in holding informal discussion of emerging issues, there could be a General Council decision that the Appellate Body may not make use of any record of discussion in a thematic session as evidence of "subsequent agreement' in the sense of Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
• Thematic sessions of all types ought to include capitalbased officials in order to facilitate dialogue among all Members. One obstacle to enhanced developing country participation is cost. To ensure greater participation the General Council should create a central budget with appropriate criteria to assess committee applications for funding. The Committee on Trade and Development (CTD) and Committee on Budget, Finance and Administration (CBFA) that jointly supervise the technical assistance and training plan might seek input from other bodies when developing the biennial plan.
• Video conferencing technology can lessen the cost of participation. Officials should be able to follow a meeting from capitals. I would generalize Brazil's suggestion for the SPS committee: when organizing thematic sessions and workshops, the Secretariat shall provide the means for remote participation (through live streaming) (WTO, 2019d). I would add that there ought to be provision to allow remote questions in all three WTO languages. Privacy and security concerns will vary by type of meeting. In some cases, only registered participants should be able to ask a question. In others only designated national officials should be able to log in at all. The Secretariat solved these sorts of technical issues in organizing online meetings of WTO bodies during the COVID-19 lockdown.
• Engagement with people who have on the ground experience is particularly important. Given sensitivities about outsider participation in some bodies, more targeted use could be made of the annual Public Forum as an adjunct to the program of thematic sessions. WTO Directors ought to have a role in evaluating proposed sessions, and some scope to encourage sessions of direct relevance to the work of the committees for which they are responsible. If Directors help write the annual call for Public Forum proposals, they could signal to the private sector and other stakeholders' themes where their input might be especially helpful. Using the Public Forum to bring in stronger voices of people who actually trade might avoid the impression of giving business more of a voice than other stakeholders in thematic sessions.
• WTO reform is not a one-shot deal. Committees should always be asking if the information available to them is good enough (Wolfe, 2018). One part of that effort should be an annual conversation about whether it would be useful to have one or more thematic sessions on implementation of existing agreements or on what is next on the committee's agenda. Every committee should consider as part of its forward work plan whether the systemic impact of RTAs in its area of work should be a subject for thematic sessions. The General Council should require each committee to detail its plans for thematic sessions in their Annual Report.

Conclusions
Shifting the focus from a 'business as usual' approach centered on defending long-standing positions on mandates and work programs of committees to one that starts with Members asking what each WTO body's activities (tasks) should be and how they can more effectively pursue them may make the 'normal business' activities of WTO bodies more salient to the constituencies that have a stake in the subject areas covered by the different WTO agreements (Hoekman, 2018). In each area Members need a common understanding of an issue and whether and how rules are needed to address it. Such learning might lead in time to new rules, but it first should allow delegates to lift their heads out of a transactional agenda in order to think about what they want to achieve together.
In addition to inadequate funding, resistance by leading Members also creates obstacles to making better use of thematic sessions. One often hears that proposals for innovative sessions are killed by some developing country Members who insist on sticking to existing mandates and resist any discussion that might possibly lead to an infringement of their policy space. But proposals are also resisted by a large country that thinks that the Technical Assistance Division not individual committees should be responsible for anything that might look like training. The WTO is not a development agency, they say. That country is also critical of what they perceive as the Secretariat bringing in people and teaching them what to say. That country is said to see a risk of the Secretariat setting the agenda not committees, which may be an unfair criticism when Members suggest a theme, and then ask the Secretariat to organize.
Members who say that WTO reform is needed ought to take a more comprehensive view of the value of enhanced dialogue. WTO reform has to include the possibility of new thinking. It is too bad when Members simply block the possibility of new negotiations before it is clear whether they are needed. Some of the resistance may come at working level in delegations; the impetus for reform in this area may need to come from the General Council where ambassadors must accept responsibility.
Policy dialogue in WTO bodies should be framed as an open process with a view to considering what works well under their agreements, what is not working, and what is next on the agenda. Committees also need to know what the stakeholders who use their agreements think. The program for informal sessions has to be specific enough to engage the people who care, the people who are trying to live with the agreement. That objective requires new thinking on how to organize, and fund, thematic sessions, and new ways to facilitate engagement with more capital-based officials, especially in developing countries.

Notes
This paper is part of a research project on WTO reform supported by the Bertelsmann Stiftung. I am grateful to Samantha Kieffer for excellent research assistance and preparing the tables, the Appendix, and the underlying database of all thematic sessions held at the WTO between 2017 and 2019; to Christian Bluth for contributing the text box, many helpful comments from Christian Bluth and Bernard Hoekman, and for confidential interviews with officials in Geneva held in 2019.