The Geneva Consensus: Making Trade Work for All

by Pascal Lamy

As Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy chaired the Doha Round of negotiations and witnessed a rapidly changing international trade environment. In his first book since leaving the WTO, Lamy reflects on his time there and outlines his views on the significance of open trade in generating global economic growth, reducing poverty and creating jobs around the world. He argues that trade can only act as a motor for growth if the correct mix of domestic and international economic and social policies is in place. This approach - the 'Geneva Consensus' - requires deeper cooperation and policy coherence between the international organizations active in setting international economic, social and political policies. The Geneva Consensus describes the ongoing efforts to put this into effect, calling for more effective global governance to tackle the challenges of globalization. It also examines relationships between trade and the key social, economic and political issues of our time.

Kindle Edition

First published November 21, 2013

Reviews

[Jake Yu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pascal Lamy has a defensive tone in this book, and it feels like he wrote it to dispel critics of the WTO's actions during his time as director. After reading it, I do think his defensiveness is justified, because he makes the fair point that the world is better off because of global trade than without it. And that to pursue isolationist policies in todays world would be economic suicide. He emphasizes climate change as a big problem that can only be solved with international cooperation, and implies that the WTO is one such possible avenue for this cooperation. He makes a lot of good points on basic economics of trade, of how exports are really composed of a bunch of different imports.

Basically, in todays world, we (by we I mean all the countries of the planet) need each other to thrive and the best way to move forward with this is an open, rule based trading system.