The Fate of Doha Development Agenda

Introduction

The WTO Ministerial Meeting (the highest decision making body) in November 2001 unanimously adopted the Doha Development Agenda envisaging multilateral negotiations  to reduce trade barriers, improve trading environment and thereby contributing towards economic stability and expansion in global trade and output. The negotiations have run into rough ground from the word go, placing the high expectations attached to them in limbo. The four-year targeted negotiations (2001-2004) have dragged to over ten years and nobody knows how much more time it will take to come to a happy ending. The time-tunnel is becoming longer and longer and the light at the end of the tunnel dimmer and dimmer. The irony is that while all parties urge for early conclusion of negotiations, serious attempts to resolve differences among major players are missing. The gulf between words and deeds persists; divergence rather than convergence dominates the talks; the position is worsening not improving. New adjectives are being coined to describe this deteriorating situation – standstill, stalemate, impasse, collapse, and now paralysis.

Who are responsible for the stalemate, what are the issues, and more importantly, what are the prospects of a satisfactory conclusion of the Talks? This paper dilates on these questions. It also discusses the interests of Pakistan in these Negotiations.