The "big bully" attributes of the US also came through in the way the convention was conducted by US trade representative Charlene Barshevsky, who by virtue of being from the host country, shared the responsibility with WTO Director General Mike Moore. Choosing to go above the heads of most member country representatives, she worked through secret dialogues with negotiators from the most powerful and recalcitrant countries, results of which, if any, she expected the rest to go along with. One such result was a committee which was not authorised by the general council of the WTO, to consider the possible linkage of trade and labour standards, which popped up midway through the meeting and received a hostile response from most developing countries.
 
The tenor of the US strategy appeared to be that in return for minor concessions on what were the original items up for negotiations in the current stage of the WTO's history, the developing countries could be steam-rolled into accepting a new round with a wide and damaging agenda.
 
In resorting to this strategy the US was clear that one fundamental "convention" adopted earlier in GATT and more recently in WTO proceedings would not be violated. This was that decisions would be based on consensus, allowing the developed countries to use their economic clout, stemming from their dominance over international trade and capital movements, to force some degree of compliance from the developing countries in trade negotiations. If that convention is dropped, and a vote taken based on the one-nation-one-vote principle provided for in the WTO's constitution, the issues of links between trade and labour and environmental standards would have gone out of the window, given the fact that the majority were against them.
 
Fortunately, partly because unity between the developed countries, especially on questions relating to agriculture and bio-engineered food products, could not be arrived at, and their combined pressure could not be wielded to try and enforce developing country compliance for a one-sided declaration heralding new trade talks, the Seattle negotiations collapse and ended with no result.
 
Needless to say, every section involved would claim success or refuse to accept failure. The protestors would say that they have been able to stall a new round, though not having such a round which covers labour and environmental standards could actually be a setback for US trade unions and some environmental groups which seek to advance the environmental cause at the expense of everything else. The developing countries would return home saying that they have stalled inclusion of these issues in future negotiations, even though no progress has been made on the demand to review and reform the trading framework created by the Uruguay Round agreement. The EU would be glad that it has, as yet, not had to retract on the question of agricultural support. And finally the US would argue that it has put "implementation issues" on the back-burner and brought to the front its principal concerns, especially the new ones relating to labour and environment, making them an informal part of any agenda for all future trade talks.
 
In fact, Ms. Barshevsky, even made the collapse of the meeting an American 'decision', when she declared to weary negotiators that: "My judgement and in turn the judgement shared by the director general ... was that it would be best to take a time out, consult with one another and find a creative means to finish the job.'' US officials were still holding that their unfinished agenda would be revived at Geneva in six months' time. In the meanwhile, Barshevsky held, talks on agriculture and services mandated by the Uruguay agreement can begin in January. Clearly, the US view is that even though it has not clinched a deal, it has set the direction which any future talks would take. In the long haul it expects that, as happened with the last round of trade talks which took almost a decade to get going in 1986 and end in 1994, WTO members can be tired into arriving at some agreement along the lines it desires.
 
There are important lessons here for developing countries like India. First, the Seattle talks once again reveal that in the world of trade it is power and politics and not altruism that determines the rules of the game. The belief, therefore, that a multilaterally-brokered liberalisation of trade would result in fair trade is completely misplaced. Second, the view that there are no choices other than participation in the WTO needs to be rethought if such participation is a sure route to turning the world trading system further against developing-country interests. Finally, if the most powerful in the world do not want to give up protection in traditional areas like textiles and agriculture, and are seeking to win for themselves new instruments of protection in the form of labour standards and environmental conditions, going ahead with unilateral liberalisation of external economic policies at home would be mistaken, since the world trading system itself may foreclose the export benefits such liberalisation is expected to offer. Its time to stand up and say that it is not US workers alone who matter. Ours do too.