Towards Doha-lite

The works of Winters and Martins (W&M) and Mattoo and Subramanian (M&S) are two serious and innovative papers that begin to analyse not only what the WTO means for small states but now, just as significantly, what the numerical preponderance of small states might mean for the WTO. This latter issue is especially significant as members grapple with increasingly complex web of interests that need to be accommodated in order to arrive at a consensus in the Doha round. While neither papers represents the position of the World Bank and IMF, what they both have in common is that they approach the current round from the possibility that some WTO members, the smallest, poorest and most trade preference dependent – for example, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana and Jamaica – may only benefit from Doha round trade liberalisation in geological time! The research, while not representing official Bretton Woods views, constitutes a dramatic shift in thinking inside the beltway from that which existed at the end of the Uruguay round when the dominant position was that ‘all members would benefit’.