Critical Mass as an Alternative Framework for Multilateral Trade Negotiations

The article posits that, over time, the sense of the World Trade Organization's so-called Single Undertaking has been perverted, and that the current interpretation requiring every WTO member to be obligated by all new Doha Round agreements is a major problem in the stalled negotiations. The authors' preliminary research supports the idea of conducting international trade negotiations in agriculture on the basis of a critical mass framework, where only those WTO members accounting for some nominated major percentage of trade would take on new obligations. The article recounts how this approach has worked before in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the WTO, and suggests areas of further research in order to test the proposition with respect to agricultural trade.