Paradigm Shift: A New Era for Trade, Sustainability, and Development

Thomas Hale and Kennedy Mbeva

Summary

There is a manifest need for a paradigm shift in global economic governance broadly, and the trade regime in particular, to advance a just, sustainable transition to a climate-safe world. This framing paper outlines the context around this challenge, identifies a number of policy tools and reforms that could help address it, and considers the question of how to build political coalitions within and across countries to advance this paradigm shift. Throughout, the paper considers, in particular, the interests of developing countries and their agency to drive change.