The collapse on Monday of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations in Geneva is one of the best things to happen to the developing world in a long while.

In the past two weeks, in anticipation of the July 27-28 meeting of the WTO General Council, a major rescue effort was mounted to save the "Doha Round" of global trade negotiations from collapse. The most prominent of these efforts took place at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, where the leaders of the world's most powerful economies called for a successful conclusion to the round, painting it as a "historic opportunity to generate economic growth, create potential for development, and raise living standards across the world."

This was pure myth. The idea that the Doha Round is a "development round" could not be farther from the truth. At the very outset of the Doha negotiations in November 2001, the developed-country governments rejected the demand of the majority of countries that the talks focus on the hard task of implementing past commitments and avoid initiating a new round of trade liberalization.  From the very start, the aim of the developed countries was to push for greater market openings from the developing countries while making minimal concessions on their part. Invoking development was simply a cynical ploy to make the process less unpalatable.

[excerpted from the full article by Walden Bello. Follow the link to <http://opinion.inq7.net/inq7viewpoints/columns/view_article.php?article_id=11543> to read the full article]
Walden Bello is executive director of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines.