Developing country members of the WTO benefit from special and differential treatment, a flexible application of WTO principles and rules according to their developmental needs and capacities. However, there has been widespread criticism that special and differential treatment is not granted to...

When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in 1995, it had less than 130 members. Since then membership has expanded to 159 as a result of 31 completed accessions. Of these, only six were least developed countries (LDCs). Another 24 countries are currently at various stages of the...

China’s WTO accession was a landmark event bringing one of the world’s major trading economies fully into the international rules-based system. The major features and implications of China’s accession agreement are reviewed and, given China’s success in trade and investment outside the...

On March 2-3, 2006, a group of leading observers of the international trade and investment scene gathered in Ottawa for an informal discussion of the prospects for the Doha Development Agenda in view of the progress in negotiations made at the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade...

On February 17-18, 2005, the Centre for International Governance Innovation at the University of Waterloo and the International Development Research Centre, in co-ordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade convened an informal meeting of leading observers of the...

The Doha climate change conference failed to deliver a credible agreement on climate change mitigation. Meanwhile, the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations has stalled, to all appearances indefinitely, leaving unresolved the multilateral talks on how to reconcile and integrate...