The Road from Doha : The Issues for the Development Round of the WTO and the Future of International Trade

After the debacle in Seattle in December 1999, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of WTO members took place successfully under tight security in the capital city Doha of the small Arabian state of Qatar in November 2001. The Doha conference did not adopt any new treaty or protocol to add to the network of WTO agreements already in place. It did, however, approve a 'broad and balanced' work programme in the form of two declarations – a main declaration and one on trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) and public health, plus a decision on implementation designed to alleviate the difficulties of developing countries in implementing the existing WTO agreements