Clifford Chance

WTO makes progress at this year's ministerial conference (MC12)

18 July 2022

After years of stalled negotiations, the World Trade Organization agreed a suite of deals at its bi-annual Ministerial Conference (MC12) held in Geneva in June. These include: an IP rights waiver concerning COVID-19 vaccines; an Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies – the first new WTO Agreement signed since 2013 (and also the first ever sustainability-focused WTO agreement); and an extension of a moratorium on applying customs duties to electronic transmissions. The package shows that WTO Members remain capable of agreeing new multilateral trade rules, even if the substance of such rules left some WTO Members disappointed.

Here, our experts assess what came out of MC12.

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