Fragile States at the WTO: Why Accessions Matter for Peace and Development
Join us for a student-focused panel exploring the role of WTO accessions in supporting peace and development in fragile and conflict-affected states. Drawing on insights from the Trade for Peace programme, the discussion will examine how accession-related reforms can contribute to economic stability, institutional resilience, and long-term development.
The panel will feature Alan Wolff, former Deputy Director‑General of the WTO, and Axel Addy, former Minister of Commerce and Industry of Liberia and Chief Negotiator for Liberia's WTO accession. The session will be chaired and moderated by Professor Ken Shadlen (Department of International Development).
A short, moderated exchange will be followed by an open Q&A, offering participants the opportunity to engage directly with practitioners working at the intersection of trade, development, and state-building.
About the Speakers
Alan Wm. Wolff is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Before joining PIIE in 2021, he was deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He is the author of Revitalizing the World Trading System (Cambridge University Press 2023), selected by the Financial Times as one of best books of 2023 in economics. He is a founder of the WTO's Trade for Peace (T4P) Initiative. His numerous recent writings on current trade topics can be found at www.piie.com and www.WTO.org. Prior to joining the WTO Secretariat, Ambassador Wolff was a leading member of the trade bar and chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC). He has served as a senior trade negotiator in, and advisor to, both Democratic and Republican administrations, and is a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies.
Axel M. Addy is a former Minister of Commerce and Industry of Liberia and Chief Negotiator for Liberia’s accession to the World Trade Organization, completed in 2016 after a protracted process that began in 2007. He led one of the fastest WTO accessions by a least developed country and positioned trade reform as a pillar of Liberia’s institutional recovery and economic stabilization. He is one of the few former ministers to have led a WTO accession to completion in a fragile, post- conflict state, while simultaneously managing trade emergency response during the Ebola pandemic. His experience sits at the intersection of trade diplomacy, fragile states, and peacebuilding.
About the Chair
Ken Shadlen is Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Ken works on the comparative and international political economy of development, with a focus on understanding variation in national policy responses to changing global rules.
Any questions?
You can contact us at intdev.comms@lse.ac.uk
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