Born of confidence at the height of optimism for economic globalization, the WTO has failed so far to fulfill all the high hopes of its founders. WTO members have largely been unable to agree on new rules to meet new commercial needs, and global trade governance has been fragmented by a resulting proliferation of local and regional trade agreements. The rise of developing countries - and especially the rise of China - have transformed global trade negotiations. The return of economic nationalism in the United States and elsewhere has accelerated a retreat from multilateral trade liberalization and other global solutions in trade.

WTO rules must preserve the natural world by protecting ecology and promoting a circular economy. Animal life must be respected, and wildlife trade must be restricted. New rules are required to help prevent deforestation; help make the mining of metals sustainable; eliminate restrictions on trade in raw materials; and support sustainable land use and water use and sustainable agriculture. New rules must also help facilitate sustainable consumption and production, including by providing trade solutions to plastics pollution.

The frayed links of the WTO must be made into the lasting links of what the WTO was originally intended to be. The international cooperation essential to making these lasting links can only be achieved if countries see their enlightened self-interest in taking the broader and longer view. This is a prerequisite to trade action, climate action, and all the other global actions necessary for achieving human flourishing through sustainable development.

In the wake of the pandemic, a new world is in the making. There can be no returning to the old world before Covid-19. In this new pandemic world, trade and trade rules are challenged along with all the other foundations of postwar liberal internationalism. The WTO rules that help link trade remain necessary. New rules are urgently needed to address the links between trade and nature and between trade and other aspects of sustainable development. New rules are equally needed to help spur a green recovery from the economic collapse caused by the pandemic.

To make the new rules needed for the new pandemic world, there must be international cooperation. Optimism is essential to creating cooperation. So too is trust. Trust is not possible without equity and inclusion. Inequality must be addressed if trade liberalization is to advance. Thus, the question of global justice must likewise be addressed. To attain justice, there must be inclusion. Particular emphasis must be given everywhere to the need for gender equity, inclusion of Indigenous peoples, and an end to all forms of racial discrimination. For all everywhere, there must be an emphasis on human flourishing through human development and sustainable freedom.

The lethal Covid-19 pandemic has forever changed the world with untold consequences for human health and the global economy. New vaccines have offered hope for health safety and economy recovery. Yet the pandemic has persisted in many countries; climate change and other ecological threats have intensified; and the trade links supported by WTO rules have been sorely tested by the backlash against globalization that has accompanied the pandemic.

WTO rules must extend beyond the links between trade and climate change to strengthen the links between trade and other economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainable development., including the global crisis in biodiversity. New rules are needed to free trade in environmental goods and services and to discipline fisheries subsidies and fossil fuel subsidies while promoting sustainable energy.

The pandemic has turned the world inward and toward such perennial false promises of self-sufficiency as localism and protectionism. The trade links made possible by global supply chains are being questioned along with all else that connects the global economy. Amid this questioning, in the ongoing battle to end the pandemic, tariffs and other barriers to trade in medicines and other medical goods must be eliminated; vaccine nationalism must be replaced by vaccine multilateralism; and trade restrictions on the global supply of food must be avoided.

New trade rules for the new pandemic world must begin with long needed rules that have yet to be agreed after decades of deadlocked multilateral trade negotiations. Trade must be freed in international trade in manufactured goods, agricultural goods, and services.

Trade rules must further the objectives of global sustainable development, starting with addressing the nexus between trade and climate change. Therefore, trade rules must support carbon pricing, including by allowing border tax adjustments and other border carbon adjustments. The WTO must approve a WTO climate waiver to support national climate response measures in furtherance of the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

The WTO must have new rules that meets the needs of the new commercial economy that has arisen since the establishment of the WTO. New trade rules for the twenty-first century are necessary for digital trade, trade-related aspects of intellectual property, competition, and investment facilitation.