Well, I woke up early this morning, checked my e-mail and saw a notification from the WTO that the chat was about to begin. I thought to myself "I'm late, so I will never get admitted--the limit is 500 chatters." I suppose I got lucky, because I was able to join the chat. But not so lucky, because I had not prepared very interesting questions. There were some asked by others. See the transcript.
There is a certain breathlessness about the forum, and there is definitely a problem of continuity. I think there is also a kind of coordination problem among the chatters which, combined with slight asynchronicity, makes for a fragmented conversation. You cannot really ask follow-ups easily, and so there is not much real exchange.
Having said that, it wasn't a bad exercise. Lamy said it was intended to help address the WTO public relations problem. He didn't say it was intended to help him to form policy, and he of course conceded that he only has marginal influence on policy in a member organization.
So, this process is a lot different in style and purpose (at least from Lamy's standpoint) from the consultative committee report. I also think the consultative committee report was able to produce a coherent line of researched reasoning, so if I had to choose between the two processes for deliberative democracy, I would probably go with the committee process, flawed as it is. I think a combination could be a significant improvement on either alone. A consultative committee that has electronic hearings, with a requirement to respond, would be an improvement.
When asked about NGOs, Lamy made clear that in his view the principal role for NGOs is lobbying at the state or multilateral level, without any special rights of input. The trick seems to be to trigger deliberation using their special perspective or expertise, without giving them greater rights than others.
