Challenges to the Legitimacy and Efficiency of the World Trading System : Democratic Governance and Competition Culture in the WTO: Introduction and Summary

In June 2003, the annual conference on Preparing the Doha Development Round - WTO Negotiators Meet Academics was held at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence and discussed Challenges to the Legitimacy and Efficiency of the World Trading System - Democratic Governance and Competition Culture in the WTO. As in the 2002 conference, academic experts presented reports on subjects related to the Doha Development Round negotiations, and WTO negotiators commented on these reports, leading to stimulating discussions among WTO ambassadors, other practitioners from developed and less-developed WTO member countries, economists, political scientists, and legal academics. This short conference report, written by the workshop organizer, summarizes the main arguments made during the discussions, without disclosing the identity of WTO negotiators since their statements presented their personal views and not necessarily their government`s official position. The summary is followed by six conference papers, and by four written comments, that served as a basis for the discussions