Reforming the World Trading System Legitimacy, Efficiency, and Democratic Governance

The 1994 agreement establishing the World Trade Organization (WTO)regulates over 95% of world trade amongst 148 member countries. The November2001 Declaration of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Doha,Quatar, has launched the Doha Development Round of multilateral tradenegotiations in the WTo on 21 topics aimed at far-reaching reforms of the worldtrading system. On August 1st 2004, the WTO General Council reached agreement ona detailed Doha Work program with the aim of concluding negotiations in 2006.This volume provides discussion and policy recommendations by leading WTOnegotiators and policy-makers, and analysis by leading economists, politicalscientists and trade lawyers on the major subjects of the Doha Roundnegotiations. Over 30 contributors explore the complexity of the world tradingsystem and of the WTO negotiations for its reform from diverse political,economic and legal perspectives.

Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann is Professor of Law at the European University Institute, Florence.