The WTO and the Failure of the Doha Rounds

2 The WTO and the Failure of the Doha Rounds The Doha Development Agenda The Doha Development Agenda is the current round of trade negotiations involving members of the World Trade Organization. The negotiations started in November 2001 in Doha, Qatar. The major objectives of Doha are reforming international trade by establishing reduced trade barriers and enhanced trade policies.

The negotiations were sanctioned by the Doha ministerial declaration and negations centered on, “agriculture, services, trade and development, non-agricultural market access, and intellectual property topic” (WTO 2012, par. 2).

Failure of Doha negotiations The negotiators had set January 1, 2005 to be the final date for finalizing the Doha rounds. In the course of the negotiations, the rounds’ initial goals fell short of the exact nature of business in everyday life. The developed nations showed reluctance in providing political capital to implement the developing countries’ interests. Some differences also arose among the developed nations themselves. Such differences touched on the European Union and the United States retaining agricultural subsidies.

The subsidies were perceived to perpetuate trade barriers (Cho 2010, 573).

In September 2003, the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Mexico was marred by accusations and counteraccusations as the developed countries were not ready to deal with the meeting’s agenda of liberating the markets in order to achieve the Doha Development Agenda by the close of 2004. Instead, the developed countries wanted to maintain their protection policies. The negotiations, thus, stalled until July 2004. This was after countries managed to lay a basic foundation for introducing a