Rediscovering the Role of Developing Countries in GATT before the Doha Round

Developing countries have been characterized by some eminent writers on the GATT as having played an essentially defensive role in the GATT, unwilling to make tariff concessions, and are said to have focused almost exclusively on securing special and differential treatment concessions. This perspective has become part of the conventional wisdom in the academic literature on the GATT. This paper argues, based on empirical evidence, that the conventional argument is not an accurate description of the role of developing countries in the ITO and the GATT and that developing countries have played an active role in shaping the agenda of the GATT/WTO.