Analysis: Can the Cancun trade talks deliver?

Analysis By Sally Hardcastle BBC World Service business reporter

There is a sense of "we've seen this all before" as the next big World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting looms.

The EU and the US continue to bicker over steel tariffs and beef bans.

TRADE AND GLOBALISATION

Key issues at the trade talks

Quick guide

But then they get together to repel demands for more changes in their agricultural subsidies.

Meanwhile, developing nations insist that for them free trade is turning out to be anything but fair trade.

And yet, former WTO chief Peter Sutherland, who was also in charge of its predecessor Gatt (General agreement on tariffs and trade), insists that the talks are vital to reduce barriers to trade.

"We had to create the WTO and we had to create, therefore, a framework for where we would go next," he said.

Large agenda

Some critics insist that WTO is bound to fail, if for no other reasons than at least because it keeps growing at breakneck speed.

Cancun: Time to make trade fair

"The expansion is taking place in terms of agenda as well as number of countries," said Barun Mitra, director of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi.

"For smaller countries and developing countries, it is not easy to develop the capacity and the resources necessary to be devoted to these new issues.

Meanwhile, he added, "if you look at the Japanese delegation, or the US delegation or the EU delegation, they have teams of people discussing just one paragraph of the agreement".

This can mean that, for example, the promise by developed nations to cut down on their agricultural subsidies becomes dependent on poorer countries opening up their financial services industries.

Supporters of the WTO reject the assertion that this is unhelpful, however, and insist that if you look at the history of the organisation it becomes clear that negotiation and compromise have led to benefits for all.

Indeed, there have been instances when strong nations have been forced to give in to the weak when opening up markets.

"It is not as if it is the EU and the US who are imposing a WTO system... on the rest of the world," said Mr Sutherland.

"Various governments have great difficulties in agreeing the liberalisation enforced on them, so it's not a one way traffic."

And that really is the ultimate defence of the WTO.

Better a poor policeman than none at all.

Without it the rich could ride roughshod over the poor to a greater extent than they do at present.