The Cancún WTO Ministerial Meeting: A View from the Sidelines

This issue of Trade Hot Topics analyses the 2003 Cancún World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting. It records how the talks collapsed and discusses the impact on the Doha Round and on the WTO itself. The paper finds that, although the Cancún Meeting collapsed, there were important, and encouraging, differences. These included the increased unity and clarity of the developing country positions in Cancún, which in the years to come could herald a welcome geopolitical shift in the WTO, and even beyond.