Running into a Brick Wall: The WTO Doha Round, Governance Gap and Geopolitical Risks
| Author | Braz Baracuhy |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00089.x |
Running into a Brick Wall: The
WTO Doha Round, Governance
Gap and Geopolitical Risks
Braz Baracuhy
Brazilian diplomat and Doha Round negotiator in Geneva
Former Professor of International Relations at the Brazilian Diplomatic Academy
(Instituto Rio Branco)
Writing from Geneva in October 2010, the deadlock in
the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations consti-
tutes a microcosm of the rising tensions between old
and new powers and the challenges of continuity and
change in the international order. The Doha Round
captures the new geopolitics of multilateralism. The diffi-
culty of concluding the negotiations after almost ten
years is a symptom and an early warning of the emerg-
ing global governance gap in the international system –
epitomizing geopolitical risks unfolding at the beginning
of the 21st century.
Under the auspices of the World Trade Organization
(WTO), the Doha Round started in 2001 with the goal of
reforming and strengthening the current international
trading rules in all sectors: agriculture, industrial goods,
services, plus a number of specific issues, such as anti-
dumping, trade and environment, among others. These
negotiations comprise a complex set of actors, interests
and geometries. The final level of ambition of the Round
is supposed to reflect an overall balance of trade-offs.
The new rules will shape the business environment of
global trade for the years to come.
The Doha Round has been caught in the middle of a
rare phenomenon in international relations: the tectonic
shifts in the global balance of economic power. The rise
of China, Brazil and India has had an impact on the WTO
negotiations. This geoeconomic change has affected the
negotiating structure and processes of the Doha Round
– the players and their relative power, as well as the
decision-making formats, issues at stake, strategies, tac-
tics, coalitions and the balance of interests.
In contrast with the earlier 50 years of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) system and its
previous eight rounds of trade negotiations, the old trad-
ing powers alone can no longer shape the international
trading regime according to their objectives and inter-
ests. In order to move the multilateral trading system
forward, it is important to understand the nature of this
change and the consequences of the current deadlock.
The impasse between the old and new trading powers
in the Doha Round will continue to generate tensions
and frustrations. But ultimately the dramatic changes in
the global balance of power will fundamentally affect all
dimensions of international life, including trade relations.
The longer it takes to conclude the Round the more dif-
ficult it is to bridge the governance gap. The geopolitical
risk is brewing for governments and business alike. The
value and continuity of the WTO and the rules-based
trading system are at stake. The challenge is to
strengthen the multilateral trading system for the 21st
century.
Changing of the guard in the international
trade regime
The genesis and stability of international regimes rest
fundamentally on a certain geopolitical balance of
power. Regimes cannot be created and prosper without
leadership and a geopolitical power configuration that
sustains the whole multilateral architecture of rules and
principles. Rules establish rights and obligations and pro-
ject them into the future. Strong and weak states benefit
from the rule of law. For the strong, the rule making
provides an opportunity to lock in values and interests,
shaping the direction of the international regime; for the
weak, rule taking disciplines relationships and prevents
abuses of power. Both gain in stability. Time, however, is
not a neutral element in international politics and diplo-
macy. As the geopolitical system changes, the test of
regimes is how well equipped they are to evolve and
adapt to the new circumstances.
The international trade regime is no exception. It is
important to note that, in the case of trade, the geopo-
litical power structure must guarantee not only the sta-
bility of rules and principles at the multilateral level but
also the freedom of geostrategic routes and sea lanes.
Changes necessarily operate in these two dimensions,
though not always in synchrony.
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 1 . February 2012
ª2012 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2012) 3:1 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00089.x
Practitioner Commentary
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