The failure of the Doha round - analyzing the root causes for the failure and how India should modify its stance to aid in the success of future negotiations

Abstract

The future of the WTO , the world's largest multilateral trading organization, is i jeopardy with multiple rounds of negotiations having failed. There have been disputes among members on a number of issues such agriculture, non tariff trade barriers, agreements on service etc.The most evident source of conflict as been the now famous 'North- South' divide which has kept the developed and developing world at loggerheads. India has had a very active and critical role to play in the negotiations thus far . Given the immense opportunities by such a pan nation trading platform, the stakes for India in the outcome of agreements reached at the WTO can not be underscored. This project aims to highlight some of these issues and looks at how India has placed its concerns before the WTO body and to extent it has achieved success in its endeavors. We take a detailed look at each of the conferences of the Uruguay and Doha rounds and the issues of interest to India that arose at each of these. Next ,we take up the contentious issue of subsidies classified into the Amber, Blue and Green boxes and the extent to which the trade distorting impact of the same affect India. We have also studied Non Tariff Barriers which are the category in which countries are seeking to decrease the level of imports. Mangoes, ground nuts and shrimps are products on which NTB's significantly impact India. We have looked at the harm caused to India exports on account of the NTBs on these items. The Swiss formula which is a proposed mechanism to cut tariff rates across countries has left many developing countries disgruntled as the order than of developed countries . We evaluate the modified multiple coefficient formula proposed by India to gauge the extent to which it deliver an outcome more favorable to India's Interests.