If the
current controversy surrounding the search for a replacement for the outgoing
director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Brazilian Roberto
de Azevedo, were not global and intense, it would mean that the position was
worth little more than a sinecure. Appointed in 2013, Mr. de Azevedo has served
notice that he will step down this August, a year before his term concludes.
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| *Okonjo-Iweala |
Up came
eight candidates from all regions of the world, three of which are Africans:
Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the former Kenyan foreign minister Amina
Mohamed, who previously was the chairperson of the WTO General Council; and
Abdel-Hamid Mamdouhm, an Egyptian lawyer who also had a stint as a senior WTO
official. Because the headship of the WTO is not geographically rotational, no
region of the world can claim it is its turn to produce the organisation’s next
D-G.
