National Interests, Coalitions and Rules of Decision in Multilateral Trade Negotiations

The Uruguay Round has often been described as an opposition between USA and European Union (EU) about agriculture. In contrast, the Cancun summit, of which the objective was to launch the Doha Development Round (DDR) highlighted numerous conflicts of interest between various countries or coalitions of WTO (World Trade Organization) members. In WTO rules, it is stipulated that any international agreement on a global package has to be adopted unanimously. As a matter of fact, controversial issues are various : degree of liberalization in agricultural sector, progressive or linear formulae, cancellation of export subsidies, decoupling of domestic support, liberalization in non agricultural sectors, special and differential treatment to be reserved to developing countries or to least developed ones, Singapore issues about trade facilitation, investment policy… On the other side , trade negotiations are affected by the emergence of new coalitions: G10, G22, G90, Like -Minded Group, SVE (Small and Vulnerable Economies), Cairns group… About many issues, it is difficult for coalitions to avoid controversy. Of course, negotiating actors could have adopted strategies: standing on maximalist positions in order to obtain greater benefits. But convergence is slow such that pundits are rather pessimistic. One can change rules of negotiation ; for this purpose Sally (2004) suggested that least developed countries could be excluded from negotiating: ‘Stated baldly : only a minority of the WTO members have the bargaining power and capacity to advance negotiations. These are the OECD countries and about a score or so of advanced developing countries (most of them in the G20). Hence the key liberalising and rule-making deals in the WTO must be done by the 30-plus countries (counting the EU as one) that accounts for over 80% of international trade and an even bigger share of foreign direct investment.’ (Sally, 2004, p. 11). On one side this proposal is not democratic and could give ri(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)