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WILL FAILURE ENABLE SUCCESS?
MOVING ONWARD FROM WTO’S DOHA FAILURE
William J. Kehoe
University of Virginia
Linda K. Whitten
Skyline College
ABSTRACT
This manuscript addresses the World Trade Organization’s Doha failure. More specifically, the
research examines events leading to the failure of the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference’s Doha
Development Agenda and the steps taken to revive the process.
INTRODUCTION
At the time of the 60 th anniversary (January 1, 2008) of the world’s multilateral trading system, a
system framed by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor the
World Trade Organization (WTO), this manuscript examines whether the WTO’s recent Doha
Development Agenda’s failure will be revived and what that bodes for continued development
and growth of the multilateral trading system; that is, whether from failure will come eventual
success? The GATT/WTO multilateral trading system is a story (GATT/WTO at Sixty, 2007) “of
remarkable change and adaptation, of a system that has contributed significantly to post war
prosperity, but which has not delivered all it could and which still faces formidable challenges.”
One of its most formidable challenges, the failure of the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference’s
Doha Development Agenda, is the focus of this manuscript.
In examining Doha’s failure and questioning whether failure will enable success, this research
was deliberately focused only on the WTO’s actions before and during the period of failure. That
is, the research examined the WTO’s reactions to the Doha failure as well as steps taken to revive
the Doha negotiations, primarily through the activities of the WTO Director-General’s office.
This research does not examine the many arguments for and against the WTO that were spawned
by the Doha failure. Those arguments, many of which are important and interesting, will be
addressed in subsequent manuscripts.
Earlier manuscripts (Kehoe, 1998; Kehoe, 2004; Kehoe, 2006) examined the role of global and
regional economic integration in facilitating international trade and comity. These manuscripts
explored the activities and structure of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and
the World Trade Organization (WTO) in facilitating friendly relations among nations in the
conduct of global trade. The GATT used a series of eight GATT Rounds and the WTO uses its
Ministerial Conferences to facilitate trade. Each of these processes is discussed in more detail
below.
What would happen if the trade-facilitating processes of the WTO were to fail or, perhaps more
drastically, if the WTO ceased to exist? Kehoe (2006) raised this question in an earlier article
asking: “Consider for a moment a world in which nations are unable to find any common ground
upon which to conduct international trade. Consider a situation where there is no trust between
nations, no agreements, and no facilitating agencies for trade. It is every nation for itself with no
concern how its actions might impact on other nations.” A situation described by a former WTO
Director General (Moore, 1999) as conducting international trade under the “rule of the jungle.”
Does the apparent failure of the Doha Development Agenda bring the world closer to a situation
ASBBS E-Journal, Volume 4, No.1, 2008 64