Strategies in GATT and WTO Negotiations

Over the past seven decades, the outcome of international trade negotiations at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have significantly influenced economic policymaking world over. With unparalleled access to first-hand accounts of key negotiators from India and other developing countries,Strategies in GATT and WTO Negotiations systematically identifies and analyses the strategies and tactics deployed by the main players at the GATT/WTO negotiating table, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. It decodes the role that strategy plays in the developed countries prevailing in WTO negotiations on most occasions and demystifies the factors and strategies underlying the rare successes of many developing countries in countering entrenched power dynamics at the GATT and WTO negotiating table. Moreover, it includes a fascinating analysis of action behind the scenes and the strategies deployed by many developing countries in securing their key negotiating objectives on three specific issues in the Doha Round of the WTO, namely, the Singapore issues, agriculture, and food security.

1 - Studying Negotiating Strategies: An Introduction
2 - Negotiation: Definition, Types, and Stages
3 - Multilateral Trading System: Origin, Establishment, and Evolution
4 - Strategies Used by Developed Countries Away from the Negotiating Table
5 - Strategies Used by Developed Countries at the Negotiating Table
6 - Odds in GATT and WTO Negotiations Stacked Against Developing Countries
7 - Overcoming Odds at the Negotiating Table: Removing Three Singapore Issues from the Negotiating Agenda
8 - Davids Join Hands to Take on Goliath in the Battle on Agriculture
9 - Securing Rules to Fight Hunger and Poverty
10 - Concluding Thoughts on Negotiating Strategies

Abhijit Das is an international trade expert with two and a half decades of experience in international trade negotiations and WTO issues in various capacities, including five years in trade policy making and trade negotiations in the Government of India and twelve years as the Professor and Head, Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. His work has played an influential role in defining the terms of debate on many issues including agriculture, government procurement, and the digital economy. He has published extensively on the economic and legal aspects of the WTO in reputed national and peer-reviewed international journals and has co-edited several books on WTO and international trade, including WTO Dispute Settlement at Twenty: Insiders' Reflections on India's Participation (Springer), Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: A Framework for Future Trade Rules? (Sage), and Twenty Years of India's Trade Liberalisation: Experiences and Lessons (UN).