The Chair of the General Council of the WTO, Dr David Walker and Facilitators of the process for the appointment of Directors-General have formally submitted the name of Nigeria’s candidate, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next head of the organization.

The Facilitators are Ambassador Dacio Castillo, Chair of the Dispute Settlement Body and Ambassador Harald Aspelund, Chair of the Trade Policy Review Body.

The action is a confirmation of the earlier decision of the informal session of the Council to adopt Dr Okonjo-Iweala “as the candidate most likely to attract consensus and recommending her appointment by the General Council as the next Director-General of the WTO”.

The Council Chair also announced the postponement of the November 9 meeting of the organization for “reasons including the health situation and current events”.

The health issue mentioned in the statement is likely to refer to the recent tightening of measures to contain Covid-19 following a rise in infections in parts of Switzerland including Brussels which hosts the headquarters of the organization.

Trade experts and observers of the WTO also believe that the “current events” cited by the Council Chair is a reference to the ongoing US elections.

It will be recalled that the Trump administration despite the massive votes received by Okonjo-Iweala in the campaign for DG has opposed her emergence on procedural grounds and other reasons – a position that had been criticized as unjustifiable by a majority of WTO members.

Below is the Communication from the General Council Chair, H.E. Dr David Walker

Friday, 6 November 2020

1.1.  As you know, at the meeting of Heads of Delegation on 28 October, in accordance with the Procedures for the Appointment of Directors-General adopted by the General Council and contained in WT/L/509 and the agreed modalities for Phase 3 of the process in JOB/GC/243, I and the Facilitators – Ambassador Dacio Castillo, Chair of the Dispute Settlement Body and Ambassador Harald Aspelund, Chair of the Trade Policy Review Body – reported the outcome of the third and final round of consultations in the process of appointment of the next Director-General and announced that we were submitting the name of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the candidate most likely to attract consensus and recommending her appointment by the General Council as the next Director-General of the WTO.  My statement can be found in JOB/GC/247.

1.2. I also announced that a Special Meeting of the General Council would be convened to take a formal decision on the appointment of the next Director-General and a meeting was subsequently convened for 9 November for this purpose with an Airgram circulated to delegations in WTO/AIR/GC/33 which, as you have seen, contains a single item concerning the Appointment of the next Director-General.

1.3. It has come to my attention that for reasons including the health situation and current events, delegations will not be in a position to take a formal decision on 9 November.

1.4. I am therefore postponing this meeting until further notice during which period I will continue to undertake consultations with delegations.