UR Agreements from Developing Country Perspective:

Developing Countries were  left very unhappy with the trade liberalisation results of the UR agreements  as they felt that though they had made sacrifices in accepting services, TRIPS and TRIMS, their gains  from  liberalisation of agriculture and textiles had been limited. They did derive benefits from other aspects of the agreement. But, on the whole, benefits have been limited and they were therefore reluctant to accept Mher  multilateral trade negotiations, particularly on an agenda determined by the developed countries. Ultimately they  accepted a  new  Round  at  Doha but  as  the  recent meeting at Cancun and Hong Kong illustrates there are serious differences regarding the agenda and the modalities of negotiations.

The UR  agreement was a  single unified undertaking. All members had  to accept the final UR agreements  as one  package deal, whereas  in earlier Rounds countries  were  allowed  to  opt out  of  certain agreements.  For  instance, developing countries  in general did not accede  to the government procurement agreement or the subsidies agreement negotiated in the Tokyo Round.  

The developing countries had to accept all the discipline incorporated in the UR  agreements.  The least developed countries were given same leeway in implementation but  there were  considerable weakening of  the  Special and Differential Treatment accorded  to  them  in  earlier agreements. It  is undoubtedly true  that developing countries  negotiated badly  because they lacked the capacity  to negotiate. But  the cards have been stacked against them. Developing countries wanted  limited negotiations as they did not have the capacity to research the implications of different negotiating options.  They
have also lacked the manpower to participate in all the different negotiations.

The UR negotiations  were split into about 14  groups, and developing  countries had insufficient people to participate in all the groups. The operation of the agreement  has upset the fine balance  of costs and benefits to developing countries to their detriment. For instance, developed countries were  to cut  their tariffs on agricultural goods by an average of 36% and on each
tariff item by at least 15%. So, if on one good the tariff was 100  per cent and on another 5%, it would achieve an average 36% out by cutting  the high tariff to 85% and the lower tariff to 2%. Obviously,  the cut from  5%  to 2%  is  not very  significant, and  the country continues to protect at very high rates the commodity it was  really interested  in protecting.  Similarly, in textiles
developed countries were to cut QRs by  51% in three stages by December 2004, and the last 49% on the last day of 2004. But again the wording of the agreement was  such that in  reality  without violating the  letter  of the agreement,  they cut QRs by only about 15-20%.  So, while  the developed countries did not violate the letter of the agreement, the developing countries
did not receive the benefits they expected.

So developing countries did not receive the benefits they expected from the UR agreements.  They also wished for postponement of the new Round  till that they had the time to digest the results of the previous Round.  It is a bit disingenuous to force them to engage in extensive negotiations  for which they are not ready and then blame them when they do badly in such negotiations.
After all, the EU and  the US are able to stall negotiations when it is in their interest  to do so. The mandated negotiations  on agriculture were stalled  by the EU -  many claim  that the large negotiating agenda  for the current MTN arises from the need  for the EU to balance the expected concessions in a ulture with gains elsewhere.  Similarly, though many NGOs  and  some developing countries claimed victory for the result at Seattle, it is clear that negotiations then did not suit the US and they bear a major share of the responsibility  for  the collapse of the Seattle talks.

The agreements on  the  rules  were  more satisfactory  from  the  viewpoint of developing countries.  The  new  dispute settlement procedures have encouraged developing  countries  to bring their disputes before  the WTO whereas they were earlier reluctant to do so, and they win many disputes. The new safeguards  regime has also worked satisfactorily. It was feared  that the sudden abandonment of the MFA regime would  create problems  for  the textile industry in the developed countries and lead these cowtries to  institute new measures to protect their textile industry. But despite a surge of textile exports from China, the new liberalised  regime has broadly survived  though growth of exports  from China has been  restricted.  Similarly, fears  about  increasing contingent protection have not been borne out. Developing countries were major  users  of these measures immediately after the UR  agreement.  But anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations and  impositions  of  countervailing and anti-dumping duties has declined in recent years.