In his paper on ‘Economic globalization and institutions of global governance’, Keith Griffin (2003) adopts a welcome forward-looking focus. Griffin is committed to symmetric and democratic globalization and presents policies towards implementing this; I will comment on his argument and then focus on the WTO. According to Griffin, ‘greater globalization, not less, is desirable’ (2003: 793). Here the question is of course what kind of globalization or on what terms? In welcoming ‘greater liberalization, not less’ (ibid.: 792) Griffin is on a similar track as Paul Krugman, Jagdish Bhagwati, Megnad Desai and others. In basic terms this is an obvious case. Developing countries lose about US$ 100 billion a year due to export subsidies and trade barriers in developed countries. Tariff barriers against manufactured goods from the developing world are, on average, four times higher than those against products from the industrialized world and the poorest nations face higher tariffs than less poor nations (Oxfam, 2002; World Bank, 2002). ‘Trade not aid’ has long been the guiding motto. But obvious as the case may be, the question again is not ‘trade or liberalization, or not’, but ‘trade and liberalization on what terms?’. Griffin objects to trends towards protectionism, in particular restrictions on the movement of unskilled labour and the regime of intellectual property rights, and proposes ‘to create a rule-based system of global economic governance as it applies to international trade’ (ibid.: 797). For the global economy Griffin proposes what others propose, in broad outline, with regard to global politics (Held’s cosmopolitan democracy), international law (Richard Falk) or global culture (Ulrich Beck’s ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’). Griffin advocates terminating the World Bank and strengthening the IMF and WTO. Keith Griffin defending the WTO is like Richard Falk invoking ‘just war’ theory to justify the Afghanistan war. It is high-minded, yet doesn’t it fly in the face of unfolding realities? How does Griffin’s prescriptive, normative account of the WTO meet the reality test of the Cancun ministerial and the FTAA (Free Trade Association of the Americas) meeting in Miami? Both cast doom on trade liberalization — if not the