At The Crossroads - The World Trading System And The Doha Round

^ SpringerWienNewYork European Community Studies Association of Austria (ECSA Austria) Publication Series Volume 8 Herausgegeben von der Osterreichischen Gesellschaft fiir Europaforschung (ECSA Austria) Springer WienNew York Stefan Griller (ed.) At the Crossroads: The World Trading System and the Doha Round SpringerWienNewYork Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Griller Europainstitut, Wirtschaftsuniversitat Wien Financial support was given by Bundesministerium Wissenschaft undForschung, Wien fur This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically those of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocoping machines or similar means, and storage in data banks. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Wien Printed in Austria SpringerWienNewYork is a part of Springer Science + Business Media springer.com Product Liability: The publisher can give no guarantee for all the information contained in this book. The use of registered names, trademarks. etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typesetting: Camera ready by editor Printing: Ferdinand Berger & Sohne Gesellschaft m.b.H., 3580 Horn, Austria Printed on acid-free and chlorine-free bleached paper SPIN: 11299127 CIP data applied for ISSN 1610-384X ISBN 978-3-211-22403-8 SpringerWienNewYork Preface Since its foundation in 1995 the legitimacy of the WTO – and herewith the notion of organising global trade on the basis of concepts like trade-liberalisation, treaty-based rule of law and enforceability – is challenged for very different reasons: Some – mostly in the industrialised parts of the world – feel that the system as such or particular aspects like, e.g., the regulations for trade in services might be a threat to democracy, others – mostly from developing countries or newly industrializing countries – deem the system fundamentally imbalanced, allowing for the application of double standards by the developed countries. Besides, issues like the protection of environmental or social standards or measures directed at public health under the conditions of trade-liberalisation rank high on the respective agendas. Although it is evident that many of those arguments are contradictory in themselves and irreconcilable as a whole, the WTO tried to react on this widespread criticism: The November 2001 declaration of the WTO’s Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar under the declamatory heading of the ‘Doha Development Agenda’ provided the mandate for negotiations on a range of subjects. The explicit justification was to place the developing countries’ needs and interests ‘at the heart’ of the organisation’s work-programme, a strong commitment to the observance of internationally recognized core labour standards, and to ensure internal transparency and participation of all Members, to mention just a few items of the ambitious agenda. Although this high level of ambition made immediate success rather improbable, the failure of the WTO’s Ministerial Conference in the Mexican sea-resort Cancún in September 2003 came as a shock to many observers. More so, since it were obviously the rifts between the developed and the developing countries’ positions that contributed the main share to this failure: Instead of reconciling those differences, the course of negotiations in Cancún made them look more insurmountable than ever. Summing up, Cancún’s failure VI Preface left the WTO and its efforts to create a new basis for global trade in a state of paralysis, thus adding considerably to its already existing legitimacy-problems that stood at the outset