Introduction -- Birth of the prodigal: GATT, Uruguay round and the WTO -- Unhappiness of the South -- The millennium round: a flop show -- Between Seattle and Doha: putting Humpty Dumpty together again -- Doha negotiations: Phase I -- Doha negotiations: Phase II -- Epilogue

In the past, many WTO member states have liberalized their trade policies unilaterally. However, they were decreasingly prepared to guarantee these measures multilaterally, that is to "bind" them. This paper analyzes the background of this development by resorting to three political economy...