Developing Countries and the WTO Agriculture Negotiations

Abstract

The Doha 'Development' Round of trade negotiations at the WTO has featured agricultural trade liberalization as one of its key aims. But developing countries were frustrated with both the process and the content of the agricultural agreement negotiations early on in the Round. This prompted these countries, through a number of developing country groupings such as the G-20 and others, to call for changes in the talks to ensure that developing country voices and concerns were heard. Though developing countries were in many ways successful in registering their concerns in the latter half of the negotiations and have maintained a fairly high degree of cohesion across the Global South, it remains unclear whether this cohesion will last as the uneven impacts of agricultural trade liberalization become apparent.