The WTO adopted measures on Tuesday to work through the backlog of PTAs awaiting evaluation:

Officials said it opens the way for clearing a huge backlog of some 200 regional trade agreements, or RTAs, many of which have been awaiting the WTO green light for a decade or more, and for fast action in accepting new ones.

“This decision will help break the current logjam in the WTO on regional trade agreements,” Mr Lamy said in a statement…

“Hopefully, this decision is a good omen for much-needed progress in other areas of the talks, such as agriculture and industrial goods trade, where agreement is urgently needed,” added Mr Lamy, currently travelling world capitals in search of a breakthrough on the Round.

This measure has little connection to those other areas and I see no reason for it to spur progress at the negotiating table.

The decision, reached in committee on Monday, provides for WTO economists to present an analysis of each agreement, with trade statistics, which will make it easier for smaller countries to determine how an RTA might affect their trade.

Until now, members have simply been presented with the often complex texts of such agreements.

Only one agreement – between the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the break-up of their former unified state in the early 1990s – has been approved in the last decade.

I raised this topic two months ago, and Ben Muse’s answer to my query on GATT Article XXIV compliance appears to have been correct.

Will the WTO acquiese to the proliferation of PTAs and greenlight all of them? Or will it try to strike some down?