Aid for Trade and the “Missing Middle” of the World Trade Organization

As part of the Doha Department Agenda, many members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and, in particular, its director-general have actively promoted the so-called Aid for Trade Initiative. Rather than offer a comprehensive account of this initiative, the purpose here is to consider its implications for proposals to fill in the WTO's missing middle, that is, for suggestions to develop the WTO's non-negotiating, non-juridical, deliberative functions.