INTRODUCTION

From September 10-14, 2003, the 5th ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) took place in Cancun, Mexico. There, the member countries of the WTO intensified negotiations in a futile attempt to complete the Doha Development Agenda, which was launched at the 4th ministerial meeting of the WTO in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001. The stakes were huge. Powerful governments and their business communities were seeking a major liberalization of services, agriculture and intellectual property rights as well as bold new initiatives on investment, competition and government procurement.

Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke co-authored Making the Links: A Peoples’ Guide to the World Trade Organization and the Free Trade Area of the Americas in advance of the 2003 Cancun ministerial meeting. An updated version is forthcoming.

• Canadian edition (PDF)
• International edition (PDF)
• French
• Spanish
• German (PDF)
• Portuguese (PDF)