Trade Hot Topics Issue#71: Doha Decision-Making

Decision-making within the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is governed by two key aspects of WTO jurisprudence: the requirement that decisions be formed by consensus; and the single-undertaking principle. The combination of these two elements means that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed by everyone’. The beleaguered progress of the Round has reignited debate regarding the merits of this approach. At the recently concluded 7th Session of the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC7), held in Geneva in late 2009, a number of developing countries demanded that areas of interest to them on which there is already agreement be implemented on an ‘early harvest’ basis, that is, prior to the completion of the Round. However, in spite of these calls, all facets of the Doha Round currently remain part of an indivisible package. The nature of WTO decision-making has also divided analysts for a number of years, with many attributing deadlocks within the Doha Round to the complexity  associated with requiring all 153 members to unanimously agree a simultaneous solution to all of their differences. The purpose of this issue of Commonwealth Trade Hot Topics is to review the arguments on either side of this debate and to survey alternative suggestions regarding the conduct of multilateral trade negotiations.