In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 The biggest problem confronting the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the time of writing this—end 2006—is surviving the Doha Round. The Doha Round negotiating process generated some positive developments for the trading system, one of which is the focus of this book: a better understanding of the linkages between trade and poverty and the need for complementary measures to assist the poorest countries to benefit from global trade opportunities, including “aid for trade.” But this positive aspect of the process is greatly outweighed by the negatives. It is still not known whether the Doha Round will eventually be brought to closure, but whatever the outcome deep concerns are warranted about the consequences of the Doha Round for the future of the multilateral trading system. It is useful to recall how difficult it was to launch the round. The road from the disastrous Seattle ministerial to the approval of the Doha declaration was a relentlessly rocky one. The odds of holding a successful ministerial gathering at Doha that could initiate a new round were very small even as late as the summer of 2001. After all, the two biggest players—the United States and the European Union (EU)—had hesitated until June to endorse formally and jointly the idea of a new round. Even after this endorsement, suspense and drama continued to pave the road to Doha. In his late July 2001 gloomy reality check, Mike Moore, the WTO director general, concluded, “A large number of players are not yet convinced,” and Introduction ernesto zedillo “The situation is fragile, and without generosity, good manners, and goodwill, the process could implode and become unmanageable.”1 He was right to be worried. Based on the purely mercantilist logic that had driven previous rounds, some of the key players seemed to think that they had little reason to support a new round. Some feared that they would end up yielding more “concessions” than the ones they would probably receive from others. In the case of the United States, a possible reason for not pushing strongly for the new round was that it saw more promise in extracting “concessions” through the expedient of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Many developing countries were rejecting the idea of a new round on the grounds either that developed countries had failed to deliver on commitments they had made under the previous Uruguay Round or that certain WTO provisions had, in practice, proved to be counterproductive . Then there were those, like the European Union, that agreed to the round but in the end would do the utmost to resist a firm commitment to undertake serious reforms in the key area of agriculture. Given the much larger and diverse country composition of the WTO as compared to the composition of the previous General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) rounds, it should have been evident that the pure logic of mercantilist negotiations—based on reciprocal concessions—could not be the driving force that would launch the new round and make it succeed. This approach could hardly do the job of achieving further trade liberalization given the variation in priorities and interests of the WTO membership. The challenge of deepening global trade liberalization had become much less of a traditional mercantilist undertaking and more a task of providing a global public good, with all the sovereignty issues and free-rider complications that such an endeavor entails. In the absence of an otherwise undesirable global government with the capacity to coerce countries into international agreements , creating the conditions for the adequate provision of global public goods critically depends, not on sheer authority, but on effective leadership. Certainly leadership stems from power, but another crucial element is legitimacy grounded in clarity of purpose and the willingness to move toward that purpose without waiting for others to do so. Sometimes it also depends on the willingness to contribute incentives that will entice others to follow. Sadly it took the 9/11 tragedy to bring together the ingredients demanded by Mike Moore in his mid-summer reality check and to inspire the leadership required to launch the new round. The atrocity energized not only the military but also the soft power of the United States, although, unfortunately, only briefly. Because of the latter, a vision different from the mercantilist one prevalent until then came into play. This vision, novel at that point in the Bush government , was best put forward by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in 2 ernesto zedillo 1. WTO...

Share