On May 23-24, 2006, the Sixth Annual WTO Conference was held in London, organized by the Institute of International Economic Law (in Georgetown Law Center) and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Many interesting, and pressing, issues, ranging from judicial economy to treaty interpretation to regulatory convergence to jurisprudential convergence between WTO and NAFTA Chapter 11 to the Doha Round negotiation. The last panel addressed the challenges of the current Doha Round negotiation. Some viewed that WTO litigations (challenging the rich countries’ agricultural subsidies) might give the rich certain incentives to reduce subsidies in the negotiation. Others argued that technical assistance (such as training) efforts should be more coordinated, avoiding unnecessary redundancy. One commentator observed that the label of a “development” round has unduly generated over-expectation of a big development package to developing countries, which complicated and impeded the negotiation process.
What do you think?
