The WTO claims to arrive at decisions by consensus. The Quad (Canada, EU, Japan and the US) sets the agenda and detailed wording of its decisions are hammered out in Green Room meetings to which awkward delegates are excluded or forcibly ejected. Green Room decisions are then presented as 'consensus' and binding on all. Objectors are often neutralised by phone calls from heads of state to the delegate's government (George Bush made fifteen such calls during the Canc�n meeting). So formal disputes have largely been limited to differences among the rich.
For the notorious WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999 the chair was the head of the US delegation and delegates from poor countries were sidelined and ignored both in the preparations and during the conference. At the following Doha meeting, Europe and the US undertook to reduce subsidies and both reneged on their promises. Subsequent meetings were held in remote locations behind police barriers, vividly demonstrating that the WTO had lost legitimacy.
By September 2003 the majority nations had had enough. The EU was responsible for the collapse of the Cancú�n talks by refusing to withdraw new issues. The US had anyway decided to deal bilaterally - "WTO or no WTO we plan to do just what suits us" said one US ambassador - indicating that it would continue to use the old imperial tool of 'divide and rule.'
