ABSTRACT
How, in fact, did the so-called Bretton Woods non-institution become the basis for what is perhaps the most important and authoritative of all the current international organizations and regimes? This book investigates the hypothesis that the pace and character of development in the global trade regime were largely determined until the early to mid-1970s by the international political leadership of key US officials, who were assisted or supported in the consensus-building process by officials representing Britain and the other largest European states. From the mid-1970s until the late 1990s, this study expects that it was driven by the leadership of officials representing the core US-EU “duopoly,” who were in turn supported in the pyramiding process by a small group of other influential officials which gradually increased in size over time. Finally, beginning in the late 1990s the large and increasingly diverse WTO membership, along with an ever more complex and broad set of negotiating issue areas, is expected to required further expansion of even the core leadership group.
