In just over three months' time the World Trade Organisation will hold the most important ministerial conference of its life in Doha, Qatar. The outcome will determine whether or not the WTO and the multilateral trading system remain relevant to the organisation's 142 member governments.
In a "reality check" that Stuart Harbinson, general council chairman, and I drafted for members, we offered a sober assessment of where we stand in about 20 areas of our work, from agriculture to protection of property rights. There is no consensus among governments on any of these issues today.
If we believe we can go to Doha with all these areas unresolved and succeed in settling them all during a five-day conference, we are living very dangerously indeed. We tried that in Seattle. The results speak for themselves.
This time the stakes are higher. Should we fail in Doha to launch a broad round, the focus of global trade activity will shift from the multilateral trade arena to regionalism, bilateralism and, most worryingly, to unilateralism.
Regionalism can be a positive spur to the global system but it is no substitute for it. In a world defined by regional trading blocs it will be the poor and small countries that suffer. Few rich countries seek out the poor for trade deals and developing countries will be further disadvantaged because they lack the capacity to deal with overlapping and sometimes contradictory trade rules.
The snapshot of our activities at present is sobering but not bleak. We have made progress in important areas and certainly the process and the atmosphere in which we are working are far better than at the same stage before our disappointing 1999 ministerial in Seattle.
For one thing, developing countries' concerns have been assigned a higher priority at the WTO. Many developing countries say the most pressing issue is the implementation of existing WTO agreements. Some governments lack the capacity to implement these agreements and others believe the agreements are unbalanced with respect to developing countries' interests.
Since Seattle, we have devoted more time to this question than to any other and if the results to date have been modest, there is the promise that we can achieve something meaningful before Doha and afterwards inside the framework of broader negotiations.
We have also succeeded in knocking down some of the barriers to imports from the world's poorest nations. Since Seattle, 29 member governments have agreed to pare back such barriers and overall we have seen average tariffs on the 48 least developed countries' products fall from 10.6 per cent in 1997 to 6.9 per cent today.
But we have much unfinished business. Developing countries say they have not received the benefits they expected from the Uruguay round. I agree. Developed countries say the trading system needs to advance and adapt to a global economy that has changed considerably since 1993 when the Uruguay round was completed. I agree with that too.
I have been criticised in some quarters for saying that the WTO needs a round. Yet the truth is that any meaningful change to our rules can come about only through negotiation. We are a forum for negotiations. We may be able to nibble around the edges and change a few things here and there without negotiations, but substantial returns will only come through a round.
The alternative is the status quo, which means yesterday's compromise. The injustices that some governments believe are inherent in the system can best be tackled through negotiations. It will also be difficult to maintain momentum in those negotiations now under way in agriculture and services without a broader round.
It is true many developing countries lacked the capacity fully to engage in the last round of negotiations. It will have to be different next time. Rich countries must provide adequate funds for technical assistance to ensure that developing countries can participate in all areas of the negotiations.
Success at Doha requires looking at trade-offs between issues that can lead to an overall agreement to launch a round. The negotiating process has hardly begun, and time is running out.
Frankly speaking, if we were to have the ministerial meeting in September, the available time would not be sufficient to address the outstanding differences.
Even so, it is still possible to achieve an outcome in Doha that would be satisfactory to all members and that would benefit both the trading system and the world economy. Governments must be ready by September to start the intensive negotiations needed if we are to put before ministers in Doha a coherent and balanced declaration.
The situation is fragile. If we return after the summer break with unchanged positions, then I fear the worst for the ministerial conference in Doha, for the World Trade Organisation and for the global trading system itself.
The writer is director-general of the World Trade Organisation