ABSTRACT
In November 2001, trade ministers of the 142 countries that were then members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) gathered in the Sheraton Intercontinental Hotel in Doha, capital of the desert kingdom of Qatar. They were there to try to forge a framework for a new round of global trade negotiations-the ninth such round since the multilateral trading system came into being in 1947. Efforts to launch these rounds begin when a critical mass of economically powerful member states agrees that there is cause for further improving the rules that govern international trade.1
