T.R.A.D.E. Working Papers 20

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This working paper is the product of a collaboration by the South Centre and the World Resources Institute (WRI). It is the third in a series intended to provide readers with an analytical overview of the on-going negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) from the perspective of the potential impact of WTO decisions on local communities and the natural resources upon which they depend. This paper, the last of the series, looks at the outcomes of the Cancún Ministerial Conference of the WTO in September 2003, with a particular focus on the processes and dynamics of Cancún to identify lessons that could be learned.

Although the Fifth WTO Ministerial Meeting ended in an anti-climatic way with Ministers adopting a one-page Cancún Ministerial Statement instructing their officials to “continue working on outstanding issues,” the story of Cancún needs to be told. Its lessons must be identified and acted on as the WTO moves from Cancún to Hong Kong, where the next meeting of the Ministerial Conference will be convened in 2005.

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