By the end of next week, the world is likely to know whether the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations – the ninth in a series since 1947 – will succeed. Last week, President George W. Bush said that the talks had reached a "critical moment". He was right: if negotiators do not agree on how to go about liberalising trade in goods, the round and possibly the World Trade Organisation itself may founder.
Disturbingly, many seem indifferent. Pascal Lamy, the WTO's dynamic director-general, is an exception. In a statement on May 15, he argued that "all the effort and all the progress we have made across the whole negotiating agenda could be put at risk if negotiators fail to unlock the modalities in agriculture and non-agricultural market access [in goods]". This is the task for the ministers who are to convene in Geneva next week. If they fail, the round is likely to run out of time.
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