The World Trade Organization (WTO) has announced that its Annual Public Forum will take place from 28^th to 30 September 2009 at its headquarters in Geneva. The title of this year’s Forum is “Global Problems, Global Solutions: Towards Better Global Governance”. (See WTO website at http://www.wto.org/english/forums_e/ngo_e/forum09_background_e.htm for details). Last year, the topic was “Trading into the Future”. Are we going forward or backwards? One important question to ask about this year’s forum topic is whether global governance is the central issue in thinking about the impact of the financial crisis on trade financing, especially in developing countries and least-developed countries (LDCs), and how to tackle protectionism.  Read the rest of this entry »