Professor Debra Steger has released a new book entitled "Redesigning the World Trade Organization for the Twenty-first Century," co-published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

The book proposes practical ways of modernizing the World Trade Organization (WTO) to cope with the effects of the global economic crisis and to respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century. It features contributions from well-known experts from Europe, North America, South America, and South Africa, as well as leading young scholars from the emerging economies of China and India.

Contributors focus on five areas critical to modernizing the WTO: transparency, decision- and rule-making procedures, internal management structures, participation by non-governmental organizations and civil society, and relationships with regional trade agreements.

This new book, along with Professor Jeremy de Beer’s recent publication "Implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Development Agenda," will be featured at a book launch and roundtable discussion at the Faculty of Law on February 9, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. in FTX 147, with a reception to follow at 5:00 p.m. in the Tsampalieros Atrium.

This event is presented by the Common Law Section of the University of Ottawa and the EDGE Network. It is co-sponsored by CIGI, IRDC and the Government of Canada.