The Uruguay Round Negotiations

It must take stamina to be a trade negotiator. The Uruguay Round of trade negotiations was launched in September 1986 with the adoption of the ambitious agenda of the Punta del Este Declaration. It ended seven and a half years later with the signing of the Final Act in Marrakesh in April 1994. Not all of that time was taken up in active negotiations: as with the Tokyo Round, many months were spent waiting for a resolution to a few particularly sticky issues. The original intent had been to complete the negotiations by December 1990, but the four-year timetable began to look wildly optimistic as successive deadlines came and went.2 Towards the end, the very act of bringing the Round to a conclusion began to be important to preserve the credibility of the multilateral process. When the Final Act had been approved the relief among those concerned with the future of the multilateral trade system was palpable.