1. The Mother of All Rounds

It is not for nothing that the Uruguay Round is called “The Mother of all Rounds”. There were after all trade rounds before in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). But the Uruguay Round was of a completely different scale. Not only was its scope vast with “new” subjects such as Intellectual Property Rights and Services, but also when it concluded successfully, it resulted in the creation of a brand new organization called WTO, i.e. The World Trade Organization with a rigorous dispute settlement mechanism. It is vitally important to understand how the Uruguay Round was conceived, negotiated and implemented by the developed countries led by the US. This is necessary for a thorough understanding not just of the negotiation dynamics prevalent then, but equally to understand what is going on in the WTO today. One of the central points of the book is that the way in which the Uruguay Round was carried out at the behest of the more powerful countries led to “negotiation resentment” on the part of some key developing countries such as India. This has left an indelible imprint on the subsequent negotiation dynamics of the WTO. The intricacies of multilateral trade negotiations are explained, along with factors such as realpolitik, aggressive unilateralism and divide and rule playing their full part. For developing countries, it was a whole new ball game since it was the first time they were undertaking negotiations on the basis of give and take. Was the negotiating outcome fair and balanced, from the standpoint of the developing countries such as India? The answer would have to be in the negative. Some observers have, therefore, called this the “Bum Deal”. The reasons for this unbalanced outcome in the Uruguay Round are also the subject of literature available in plenty. On the other hand, there were also some limited gains for developing countries from the Uruguay. Over time, this led to what the author describes as “negotiation resentment” among certain developing countries. “Negotiation Resentment” is the result of: All of the above applied to a group of developing countries, particularly, India. This “Negotiation Resentment” was too obvious to ignore. The onus was, therefore, on the developed countries and the WTO to take measures to alleviate this.