With no certainty of closure of the Doha Round negotiations in 2010, almost 10 years after its launch, the role of the WTO is in question. Cartier watch lack of desire to commit to reforms on the developed countries’ part, the relative lack of interest for this “Development Round” on the developing countries’ part - notably because it is not considered by some as sufficiently development-oriented, and the single undertaking condition for the closure, all have brought this process to a stall, according to the panellists.

The International Centre for Trade Sustainable Development organised Cartier watch Geneva Trade and Development Symposium as a parallel event to the 30 November to 2 December WTO ministerial in an effort to encourage discussions about trade and development.

ICTSD Cartier watch week also released a discussion draft of a new joint report entitled “Strengthening Multilateralism: A Mapping of Proposals on WTO Reform and Global Trade Governance,” by Carolyn Deere-Birkbeck and Catherine Monagle. Deere-Birkbeck also posted a separate article to the Global Economic Governance Programme blog entitled, “Momentum Builds for Discussion of Reform at WTO Ministerial Conference.”

Several things have gone wrong, according to Simon Evenett, professor of economics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. The fact that countries went into a round expecting all members to pass painful reforms and binding multilateral accords is problematic.

There are few encouraging signs that governments are prepared to undertake meaningful reforms - that is, reforms that hurt a commercial interest - in terms of binding accords, he said on an earlier panel on 1 December at the same event.

There Cartier watch are three possible outcomes to the round, he said. The first is formal abandonment; the second that it become a “round of convenience,” waiting until a moment when “everyone finds it geopolitically useful to conclude,” or too embarrassing not to; and the third that there is informal abandonment or “drift” into abeyance, letting things “chug along until there’s a window for movement.”

Countries have been discouraged from entering into any Cartier watch discussions about alternatives, and “we are tied more and more to the Doha mast,” Evenett said, adding that an informal abandonment of the round was already taking place.

“We have let it suck all of the oxygen out of any discussions” on the multilateral trading system and without a change of course, the “WTO will cease to be seen as a place where serious governments do business.” Countries as small as Singapore and as large as Korea are saying they have lost engagement and are instead focussing on bilateral agreements, he said at the earlier panel.

What the world needs is a developmental reform of the international trading system, said Rob Davies, South African trade minister. The needs and interests of developing countries need to be placed at the heart of the work programme. Most of the developed world is not ready to accept sufficient commitments towards development needs, he said.

Frank Heemskerk, Dutch minister for foreign trade, said the WTO played an important role in the crisis and that many things have gone right thanks to the WTO. In July 2008, “we did a lot of work,” but the Bush administration did not wish to finalise the work. At the moment, looking at the United States, at the top of President Obama’s agenda are Afghanistan, healthcare and climate change, he said. So, “let’s be realistic and let’s do the utmost to have Doha on the agenda in 2010,” he said.