Towards a Sustainable Global Trade System: the Villars Framework and the Remaking Global Trade Project

As participants in the COP28 discussions grapple with the conclusion of the Global Stocktake that the world community is falling far short of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions required to avoid serious climate change impacts, this session will make the case for restructuring the international trade system as a critical (and under-attended to) point of leverage for moving the global economy onto a sustainable trajectory. It presents the Villars Framework for a Sustainable Trade System, which represents the culmination of a two-year, multistakeholder project to develop a comprehensive, people-centered, climate-aligned trade reform agenda. The session will explore a broad set of proposals for regearing the WTO and other trade institutions to be fit-for-purpose in the 21^st-century including: alignment with the global community’s commitment to climate change action, a subsidies reform strategy that considers sustainability alongside trade impacts; new emphasis on inclusively established sustainability standards, trade system incentives to promote a circular economy; and changed WTO governance to create a more dynamic and deft institutional structure.

Panel 1: Introducing the Villars Framework for a Sustainable Trade System

• Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor, Yale Law School and Yale School of the Environment
• Chantal Line Carpentier, Head, Trade, Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development, UNCTAD
• Trevor Sutton, Research Director, Remaking Global Trade Project