2022 Trade and Sustainability Hub

As World Trade Organization (WTO) members gathered in Geneva for their Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June, IISD reconvened with its network of trade partners to host its second Trade and Sustainability Hub event.

This 3-day event, hosted in partnership with CUTS International, Geneva, and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), continued the conversations which started during the inaugural Trade and Sustainability Hub conference last December.

They were hosting an opening plenary followed by three virtual thematic round tables focused on some of the most pressing trade issues in the runup to MC12 and beyond.
 
The opening plenary discussed the role of trade and the multilateral trading system in the face of a “perfect storm” of crises facing the WTO today, including the effects of the pandemic, the food security crisis, rising geopolitical tensions, and the damaging effects of climate change. The three round tables focused on:
•    How the WTO can better prevent and mitigate food crises
•    How trade rules can help in our race to preserve the environment
•    Whether digitalization and e-commerce can offer new prospects for tackling inequality

In-person activities
were held at International Environment House 2, 7 Chemin Balexert, 1219 Geneva

In addition, Queen’s University was hosting two sessions for in-person attendees on June 14 discussing the international legal dimensions of Russia's war against Ukraine and the shift to multipurpose trade policy.