The Road From Doha: The Issues for the Development Round of the Wto and the Future of International Trade

Abstract

After the debacle in Seattle in December 1999, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of WTO members took place successfully under tight security in the capital city, Doha, of the small Arabian state of Qatar in November 2001. The Doha conference did not adopt any new treaty or protocoll to add to the network of WTO agreements already in place. It did, however, approve a ‘broad and balance ’ work programme in the form of two declarations—a main declaration and one on trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and public health, plus a decision on implementation designed to alleviate the difficulties of developing countries in implementing the existing WTO agreements. In other words, the Doha conference agreed on the nature and scope of the next round of trade negttiations, named as the ‘Development Round’. Although some least-developed countries had argued that ‘no new round should be started until there has been full implementation of the agreements concluded in the last Round, and an evaluation of their effects done’, the Doha Conference decided to start a new round of trade negotiations. How development oriented is the agenda of the new round of trade negotiations? What is going to be negotiated during th e negotiations? Is it indeed going to be a ‘Development Round’ in more than name? The object of this article is to analyse the background to the Doha conference, to assess the nature of negotiations at the conference and to evaluate its outcome.