ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolving degrees of influence that developing countries exercise in the WTO in terms of their visibility in the organization and the bargaining outcomes that they have generated. It begins with a brief overview of the negotiating history of developing countries in the GATT and then analyses more recent bargaining outcomes involving developing countries in the WTO. Some of the outcomes that are adverse to developing countries can be explained as an inevitable result of the international power discrepancies and domestic weakness of developing countries. But this chapter argues that many of the problems of participation and influence facing developing countries in the WTO are a direct product of the institutional design and negotiating processes that underlie this organization. It further argues that unless an effort is made to change the current trajectories of institutional evolution and negotiating processes, the position of developing countries within the WTO is likely to only worsen with time.
