The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), that took place from 10 to 14 September 2003, in Cancun, Mexico, ended without agreement on the Ministerial Text. It is the second time in the history of this organization that something like this happens, following the failure of negotiations in Seattle (1999).

The main goal of the Cancun Ministerial Conference was to assess the progress in the negotiations and other efforts under the Doha Development Agenda, adopted at the Ministerial Conference held in the capital of Qatar in 2001. These negotiations, which include agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations, are due to conclude before 1 January 2005.

The meeting failed primarily as a result of the acute differences in interests dividing developed countries (mainly the United States and the countries of the European Union) from developing countries, who stood firmly against an agreement on the so called “Singapore issues” (investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement, and trade facilitation).

In fact, the greatest achievement of the Conference may just be the consolidation of a group of 20 countries (called the G20+, as its number of members is expected to grow) which, with Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, India, China and South Africa, among others, joined forces to defend the interests of developing countries in multilateral trade negotiations. In the press conference held by this group at the end of the meeting, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the group “comes out stronger than it was before Cancun.”

The official closing session adopted a brief and simple Ministerial Statement instead of the substantive Ministerial Text that had been under discussion since the first draft appeared in Geneva in July. The Statement expressed that all the participants had worked hard to make considerable progress under the Doha mandates, but that “more work needs to be done in some key areas to enable us to proceed towards the conclusion of the negotiations.”

Rather than reducing the polarization that dominated the Conference, the revised Ministerial Text –which in the end was not approved- had the opposite effect. Developing countries were unhappy because the text on agriculture did not address their concerns and outraged at the sections on the Singapore issues, which had totally disregarded their views and the formal proposals -presented by 70 developing countries- to continue the clarification process and not launch negotiations. They were also angered at the poor treatment given to the cotton initiative (that had gained widespread support), which one of the Ministers proclaimed to be an insult to Africans and unworthy of the WTO.

This brought to the fore the issue of the manipulative decision-making process, especially with respect to the drafting of texts, which are supposed to reflect the concerns and views of all member countries. Ultimately, Third World Network Director Martin Khor said, “it was the WTO’s untransparent and non-participatory decision-making process that caused the ‘unmanageable situation’ that led to the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial.”