Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy?

The research paper 'Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy?' by Nicolas Lamp describes a paradigm shift in international trade, moving from a primary focus on economic efficiency and liberalization toward 'multipurpose trade policy.' This new approach integrates substantive policy objectives—such as climate mitigation, national security, and labor rights—directly into trade policy rather than treating them as externalities. The author outlines the domestic challenges of balancing incommensurable goals and the international implications, including a declining role for multilateral trade law and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

• Trade policy is undergoing a paradigm shift toward 'multipurpose trade policy,' where the primary goal is no longer just an efficient international division of labour through liberalization, but the achievement of substantive policy objectives including mitigating the climate crisis, safeguarding national security, building resilient supply chains, addressing inequality, and bolstering labour rights.
• The shift to multipurpose trade policy is a response to a crisis of globalization, where the traditional view of free trade as an inevitable force for good is challenged by narratives regarding job losses, rising inequality, the fragility of supply chains exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the climate breakdown caused by Western patterns of production and consumption.
• Implementing multipurpose trade policy presents four primary domestic challenges: balancing incommensurable goals that cannot be reduced to a single economic metric; breaking down silos of expertise between trade officials and other government departments; determining if trade policy instruments are the most effective tools for non-trade objectives; and allocating decision-making authority across overlapping policy areas.
• There is a growing trend toward unilateral or minilateral approaches to trade policy, as states adopt a 'whatever it takes' mentality that prioritizes political economy imperatives over legal compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, particularly regarding climate action and industrial policy.
• The shift toward multipurpose trade policy is most prominent in developed countries like the United States and the European Union, leading to tensions with developing countries who may view these new objectives as pretexts for rolling back trade liberalization or as a disregard for their own priorities, such as food security and technology transfer.
• The role of the WTO is becoming fragmented and varies by subject: it has the most potential for formal lawmaking in sustainability objectives, may serve as a policy coordination forum for pandemic response, and may be limited to a monitoring and debate function for security measures.

APA

Lamp, N. (2023). Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy? International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/multipurpose-trade-policy

Chicago

Lamp, Nicolas. Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy? International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2023. https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/multipurpose-trade-policy.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lamp |first1=Nicolas |title=Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy? |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=15 January 2023 |url=https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/multipurpose-trade-policy |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lamp2023toward, author = {Lamp, Nicolas}, title = {{Toward Multipurpose Trade Policy?}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2023}, month = jan, url = {https://www.iisd.org/articles/policy-analysis/multipurpose-trade-policy}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }