New groups in the WTO agricultural trade negotiations

The agriculture negotiations initially continued the late Uruguay Round pattern on the assumption that the process used by the first chair of the agriculture negotiations, Aart de Zeuw, in the late 1980s was still valid. [...] In the two years after the Doha ministerial, the then chair of the agriculture negotiations, Stuart Harbinson, tried to force the pace of negotiations by using the traditional technique of producing a chairman’s text. [...] The rejection appeared to be the cause of the collapse of the ministerial, bringing the Doha negotiations to a standstill. [...] It was clear by the start of the Uruguay Round in the 1980s, however, that things had begun to change, not least because of the creation of the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters to create enough weight to be able to participate as equals in the agricultural negotiations (Higgott and Cooper 1990). [...] Whatever the relative weight of the factors, the key deal making the round possible was nevertheless the Blair House accord between the U. S. and the EU.