Alec van Gelder: WTO Ministerial A Pointless Exercise

Upon the closure today of this year's World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial in Geneva, Alec van Gelder, trade policy analyst at International Policy Network and coordinator of the Freedom to Trade Coalition, offered the following comment:

"Over the past eight years, the World Trade Organization has failed to cobble together agreement on the Doha Round and today Member States come away empty handed from the least ambitious Ministerial in WTO history. This comes hot on the heels of yet another G20 meeting where Members committed themselves not to introduce protectionist policies that would aggravate the global economic downturn, in spite of the fact that similar pledges have been made—and broken—in the past year.   If grandiose international meetings fail to promote the right solutions for economic recovery and global growth, and break their promises whenever they come to agreement, what then is the point of such meetings at all?”