Developing Countries and the Multilateral Trade Regime: The Failure and Promise of the WTO's Development Mission

(Hardback)

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This book explores the way in which 'development' has functioned within the multilateral trade regime since de-colonisation. In particular, it investigates the shift from early approaches to development under the GATT to current approaches to development under the WTO. It argues that a focus on the creation and transformation of a scientific apparatus that links forms of knowledge about the so-called Third World with forms of power and intervention is crucial for understanding the six decades long development enterprise of both the GATT and the WTO. The book is both topical and necessary given the emphasis on the current round of negotiations of the WTO. The Doha 'Development' Round has been premised on two assumptions. Firstly, that the international community has undertaken an unprecedented effort to address the imbalances of the multilateral trading regime with respect to the position of its developing country members. Secondly, that its successful conclusion represents an historic imperative and a political necessity for developing countries. Through a sustained analysis of the interaction between development thinking and trade practices, the book questions both assumptions by showing how development has always occupied a central position within the multilateral trading regime. Thus, rather than asking the question of what needs to be done in order to achieve 'development', the book examines the way in which development has operated and still operates to produce important, and often unacknowledged, power relations. "Intense controversy surrounds the issue of the relationship between trade and development. This book is novel in examining the emergence of the international trade regime in the context of the history of the concept of development that may be traced back at least to the time of the League of Nations. This is a very welcome and original contribution to the field that should generate new discussions and understanding about the law of international trade." Antony Anghie, University of Utah

Reviews

Developing Countries and the Multilateral Trade Regime provides valuable insights to the debate surrounding free trade, multilateralism and the challenges facing developing countries under the trading current structure. ...a worthy addition to the critical literature on free trade and multilateralism. Scholars, researchers and policy makers, particularly those in developing countries, would find some important insights and lessons to be learnt from the issues highlighted in the book. -- Mohammed El Said * Journal of International Trade Law and Policy, Volume 10, Number 3 *
..a text that offers a coherent and thoughtful narrative about the ongoing challenge of developing countries within the WTO... ... a commendable contribution to the literature on development and the WTO. What Alessandrini has done in this book is a commendable job of developing, explaining, and defending a historical narrative of multilateral trading system that tends to devalue and (at least partially) disenfranchise developing countries. It is well researched and well thought, and it usefully places its subject in historical perspective. The book also offers a useful point of departure for further scholarship along various lines. -- Gregory W. Bowman * Trade, Law and Development, Volume III, No. 1 *

Author Bio

Donatella Alessandrini is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent.