UN General Assembly
2008

The collapse of the recent Doha talks is deeply troubling. The Doha Development Round was the first round of talks to be launched after the end of the cold war. Two years after the failed start at Seattle, it was launched again two months after 11 September 2001, when member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) felt a strong sense of common cause. Since then, however, progress has been painfully difficult. I remember WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy telling me that not enough countries felt a sense of responsibility for the global trading system. The recent setback in Geneva means that it will be some time before the Doha Development Round can be concluded. During the Cold War, the United States and the European Union effectively led the global trading system of the non-communist world. In 1994, the Uruguay Round was finally concluded after United States and European negotiators struck a bargain at Blair House, much to the unhappiness of many countries that felt excluded but went along nonetheless. For the Doha Development Agenda, however, a