World Agricultural Trade: WTO and the Doha Ministerial Declaration, 2001

Abstract

The importance of world agricultural trade for achieving world food security was recognized at a number of international conferences throughout the 1990s. The conclusion of the GATT Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and the setting up of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 provided a major opportunity for reaching agreement on fair and free world trade within a liberalizing global economy. However, progress towards this aim proved elusive at the first three WTO ministerial meetings at Singapore in 1996, Geneva, Switzerland, in 1998 and Seattle, USA, in 1999. Promise of a break-through came at the fourth WTO ministerial meeting that was held in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. Negotiations on agricultural trade began in early 2000. By November 2001, at the time of the Doha ministerial meeting, 121 governments had submitted a large number of negotiating proposals.