Last week, two former Mexican representatives to the WTO argued that either Pascal Lamy or Carlos Pérez del Castillo would make a good WTO Director General:
"Political correctness should not guide WTO race
By Angel Lopez Hoher and Eduardo Perez Motta
Published: April 23 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 23 2005 03:00
From Mr Eduardo Pérez Motta and Mr Angel López Hoher.
Sir,
As the race to succeed Supachai Panitchpakdi as director-general of the World Trade Organisation enters its final phase, it is important to take a step back to ponder what would be best for the organisation as a whole.
In an article on the importance of choosing the heads of international organisations, Martin Wolf suggested that the next director-general needed to be "someone able to sell [the WTO's] mission, understand the detail and, where necessary, reach out to the governments on which agreements depend". To these criteria we would like to add two that should be obvious (but are not always): that the director-general has to be perceived as an honest broker, and needs to be someone who believes in free trade.
We believe, unencumbered by the responsibility of trade-related public office, that both Pascal Lamy and Carlos Pérez del Castillo fulfil these criteria - each with an emphasis on different traits.
The list of candidates has shrunk to three men. A choice will soon have to be made between them, to avoid repeating the unsavoury and debilitating experience of last time. It would be heartening if, for this choice, WTO members were guided not by regional or political considerations, but by the candidates' personal record and the work programme they have laid out before the General Council.
In its hour of need - and this surely qualifies as such - the WTO should be headed by the best man, not by the most politically correct or the one least threatening to any member's position."
Letter to the editor of the Financial Times, published April 23. The Times noted that "Eduardo Pérez Motta, Former Ambassador of Mexico to the WTO Angel López Hoher, Former Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the WTO").
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