Wto from the Uruguay round to Cancun: A North-South Interpretation

This article presents an analysis of the Gatt/Wto North-South debate the from the Uruguay round to Cancun. The first three sections outline the change in the strategies of the developing countries (DCs), arguing that the results of the Uruguay round were biased in favour of the latter, and that expansion of the agenda into regulatory issues is potentially negative for the DCs, since the asymmetry in techni-cal capability, negotiating power and implementation costs jeopardises the chances of obtaining results favourable to development. Section 4 comments on the Doha results, section 5 examines the agriculture negotiations in closer detail, and section 6 comments on Cancun, where the traditional approach - reaching consensus on the basis of agreements designed by a few, mainly developed, countries - failed, together with the Conference. Although there are risks for the multilateral trading sys-tem, the developing countries had no acceptable alternative in Cancun.