Ten Years after Doha

A new “Ministerial” of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will be held in Geneva 15-17 December 2011. Usually, such meeting of member countries at the ministerial level is supposed to unlock the ultimate details before a deal is concluded. The achievement of this ministerial will be more modest. The current Round of multilateral trade negotiations that was launched in Doha on 14th November 2001 has reached a critical point and the question now is how to salvage a decade of infructuous negotiations. Even an interim agreement dedicated to poor countries and trade facilitation is out of reach.