Problems of north-south international trade as the main reason of world trade organization difficulties

This article tries to summarize achievements of ten years anniversary of WTO (1995-2005) and the negotiations taking place at its summits from Seattle (1999) to Hongkong (2005). These achievements could be characterized at best as mediocre ones. WTO has been muddling through numerous disputes, the most important of which have been and still are agricultural subsidies of developed countries. Due to double standards and sometimes lack of transparency at least three summits (Seattle, Cancún and Doha) almost failed and the Katar Round ended deadlocked for 2004. The last Hongkong summit (December 2005) saved WTO functionality mainly through some concessions demanded by developing countries" since 1998. Katar Round, unfortunately, is still far from any safe landing. Nevertheless, the article praises some good results, too. The whole decade of such partial and practical struggling open, hovewer, also some issues important for theory of international economics, for example such as optimality of global vers. regional-subregional options for the future international trade liberalization, etc. The article, of course, cannot pretend solving but only draws attention of academic research resp. sorting them and establishing their hierarchy.

Keywords: globalization, world economy, international trade, developing countries, agriculture protectionism, World Trade Organization, trade negotiations, bilateral trade agreements