Doha Development Round: Closure, Revival, and Replace

Introduction

After the Second World War, the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was formed in 1947 as a regulator of global trade. From 1948 to 1966 six rounds of trade talks were concluded successfully. This had been because the United States of America extended liberally in terms of tariff access to its markets. But the seventh round that held at Tokyo was not in the same spirit. Under Tokyo round the developing economies got few concessions. This was also due to the fact that oil price had left the developed world in disarray. As the oil weapon faded its importance, the US came back as a major player in global trade negotiations.

At Uruguay round, different newly emerging areas namely-agriculture, services, international patents were taken into consideration while making trade negotiations. Non-reciprocity was replaced by a reviewable S and DT system of giving concession to developing economies wherein most developed nation tariffs on labor-intensive goods like clothing and leather products were efficiently and effectively pushed back to the end of the Uruguay round i.e. 1995. Again it was US need to win over friends in the war on terror that resulted into Doha Development Round interrupting the Uruguay round and initiation of ‘development round negotiations’. [Pant 2011]

Leaving a side the issue in regard to dominating role of US in trade negotiations, the most vital thing was the US role as a driving force in ministerial negotiations. On the other side, the most strategic trend that had come up was the declining significance of the US in world trade. This was because, after 1995 for a decade, trade of non-OECD nations had registered more trade than the global trade by an increased margin of 50 per cent. Similarly, for much of the developing countries, the US market was no longer significant as compared to mid of the decade of 90s. Instead of US market Chinese market had emerged out as an alternative option.