Triangulating the World Trade Organization

One of the biggest challenges facing the World Trade Organization is to determine its own mission. The failure to launch new trade talks at the WTO’s Ministerial Conference at Seattle in late 1999 was due, in large part, to disagreements between members about what “new” issues should be placed on the negotiating agenda. These problems continued to stymie the WTO in the run-up to the Doha ministerial meeting in 2001.