Supporters of the World Trade Organization have sung praises on how the organization is the institution of even the smallest countries and the most inconsequential economies. They evoke an impression of a welcoming congregation where everybody has an equal footing, equal voice, equal presence, and equal significance. That’s an impossible scenario, of course. There’s nothing democratic about the WTO.

The WTO was meant to serve widening democracy through transparent global trade dealings. The ability to cast an equal vote is king, they say, in contrast to the IMF and World Bank where your worth is commensurate to your weight in gold.

One can imagine that voting happens in major halls. However, lobbying for vote preferences and influence peddling may very well happen outside of these major halls – and no one may really know about them. Those who can exert the biggest influence can, therefore, ‘create the consensus.’ The voting may just be a mere show of hands.

At the WTO, there is such a thing as the Quad that uses its economic and political influence to affect opinion, as well as informally forge consensus among themselves – prior and outside of formal WTO voting processes. After all, what can stop it from ‘building consensus’ without the full participation of the WTO body? The Quad is composed of the United States, the European Union, Canada, and Japan.

The WTO is not the new world order, as it is touted to be. It is nothing but the same wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is the same old global economic pyramid that comes with a different acronym.

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