Three variations on 'The Future on the WTO'

Abstract : The Report on 'The Future of the WTO' had a serious challenge to face. On the one hand, it had to avoid Charybdis - the temptation of a cozy status quo, natural in such a complex institution shaped by fifty years of 'creative ambiguity' and customary practices that evolved into quasi-rules. But it also had to avoid Scylla - the temptation of a cheap idealism leading to simplistic and/or unrealistic proposals for reform, of which there were so many doing the rounds in Geneva and in some European capitals when the Consultative Board began its work (...).