Trade campaign updates
June 2007
WTO’s final agony has lasted too long
Mercifully, the so-called Doha Development Round seems to be coming to an end for the World Trade Organization...
July 2006
WTO talks stall
Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, says the Doha Development Round of negotiations are in crisis after yet another ministerial meeting in Geneva at the end of June failed to reach a consensus. Things are so bad that the ministers did not even engage in real negotiations this time; they just re-stated long held positions....
May 2006
WTO is running out of excuses and time
World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiators have again failed to come up with specific written proposals to present to member countries. They missed the April 30th deadline set at the Hong Kong ministerial, and a proposed spring meeting of ministers has been cancelled...
November 2005
The next World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting will be held in Hong Kong from December 13-18. This is a critical juncture for the WTO, because the Doha Development Round has been in trouble since the failure of the Cancun ministerial in 2003. Since then, negotiators have failed in their attempts to draft documents...
May 2005
Last year, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick warned the world that 2004 was in danger of becoming a "lost year," in terms of advancing the trade agenda. He turned out to be right. WTO negotiations barely progressed and the FTAA negotiators could not even agree on a common agenda. NAFTA was more in the news because of its problems (softwood lumber and BSE), than its 10th anniversary. This year, however, promises to be fertile in trade developments...
