The Doha Development Agenda : Political Challenges to the World Trading System - a Cosmopolitan Perspective

The Doha Work Programme of 1 August 2004 justifies hopes for a successful conclusion of the Doha Round negotiations in 2006/2007. Developing countries must exploit more actively the opportunities which the WTO offers for promoting economic welfare through trade liberalization and legal reforms. The decisions to phase-out export subsidies and to move forward with negotiations on trade facilitation will help the WTO to realize the `development agenda` of the Doha Round. Additional commitments by advanced developing countries will be necessary for enabling industrial countries to remove some of their - for developing countries most damaging - market access restrictions. In order to deliver favourable results for developing countries, market liberalization commitments have to be supplemented by special and differential treatment and a large amount of non-discretionary technical assistance to aid implementation. The WTO also has to demonstrate to the US Congress that WTO negotiations and the domestic implementation of WTO dispute settlement rulings are worthwhile. The article discusses legal and institutional WTO reforms necessary for concluding the Doha Round