Two Principles for the Next Round Or, How to Bring Developing Countries in from the Cold

In all likelihood, the WTO Ministerial this November will usher in a new Round of negotiations, the ninth in a series that began in Geneva in 1947. I am delighted that Mr. Moore has called on WTO members to provide more help to developing countries, and gone so far as to describe these negotiations as a “development round.” Today, I want to reinforce Mr. Moore’s call. I will argue that basic notions of equity and a sense of fair play require that the next round of trade negotiations be more balanced —that is, more reflective of the interests and concerns of the developing world — than has been the case in earlier Rounds. I would go even further than this and say that unless we achieve greater balance, we will place at peril the success of future trade negotiations. The stakes are high. There is a growing gap between the developed and the less developed countries, highlighted in this year’s World Development Report (see Graph 1). 1 The international community is doing too little to narrow this gap: even as the ability of developing countries to use aid effectively has increased, the level of development assistance has