The World Trade Organization (WTO) and Modern Global Trade Structures: The Future of Multilateralism

WTO is the foundation of the global trading system and it gets close to 98 percent of global trade controlled by its international non-discriminatory policy, transparency, and fair play principles. Nonetheless, the 21 st century has seen a radical change in the world trade systems due to technological revolution, regional trading blocs, digitisation and the need to be sustainable. In this study, the researcher looks into how the WTO is changing its role in these new trade forces, putting particularly in data-driven recommendations of what is likely to happen between 2015 and 2025. The paper explores the manner in which the WTO has adjusted or failed to adjust to these challenges as digital trade, environmental sustainability, and realignments of geopolitical issues as per the latest WTO, IMF, and UNCTAD reports and using analytical reviews. The paper also emphasizes plurilateral negotiations, the strength of regional blocs, such as the CPTPP and RCEP, and accelerated e-commerce as one of the factors of contemporary trade. The results indicate that the WTO still plays a crucial role to ensure a system with rules in place but needs institutional reforms, digital infrastructure frameworks as well as climate sensitive trade processes to stay with times. The paper finally culminates by giving policy recommendations on how the global governance in the trade can be strengthened to ascertain inclusiveness of the developing economies into the emerging global market.