GEG WP 2007/33 Developing Country Coalitions and Decision-Making in the WTO

Full Title: New Faces in the Green Room: Developing Country Coalitions and Decision-Making in the WTO

Author: Mayur Patel

Type: GEG Working Paper 2007/33

Abstract

While the rules-based multilateral trading system represents an important part of the international governance framework, concerns have long been expressed about the legitimacy and  accountability of the WTO. In 1999, the dramatic breakdown of the Seattle Ministerial placed the marginalisation of developing countries in key deliberations as one of the central political challenges facing the international trade regime. Historically, trade negotiations in the WTO and prior to that the GATT have proceeded through the creation of ‘consensus’ within restricted inner circle group meetings, traditionally dominated by the Quad – the US, Japan, EU and Canada. The lack of transparency and exclusivity of these meetings, combined with the limited resources of weak states, meant that developing countries found themselves isolated from many decision-making processes. In the face of these disparities and institutional pressures, developing countries have now increasingly sought to build coalitions as the primary means of improving their representation in the WTO.

Author Bio

Mayur Patel is a Project Associate of the Global Trade Governance Project of the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford. He has previously worked for the UNDP in Harare, Zimbabwe, and as a consultant for Oxfam International and Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. His research focuses on developing country coalition bargaining in the WTO, the political economy of African engagement in multilateral trade negotiations and the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Mayur is a D.Phil. candidate in the Department for International Development, Oxford University and can be contacted at mayur.patel@new.ox.ac.uk. This paper is an updated version of Patel, M. (2007) ‘New Faces in the Green Room:
Developing Country Coalitions and Decision-Making in the WTO’, GEG Working Paper Series, June 2007.