In the event, this discussion and the recent trade experience of developing countries suggests that expectations that the new world trading arrangement will in itself bring substantial static and dynamic gains to the developing countries were grossly exaggerated. The developed countries arrived at a compromise in which the US and EU retained protection of their agriculture as well as sensitive labour-intensive sectors, while winning for themselves greater access into developing country markets for telecommunications, information technology and financial and other services. This has in practice only perpetrated the inequality characterising the world trading system.
 
Despite this experience, the developed countries have chosen to push for a new round of trade negotiations at Seattle. Most developing countries are sceptical about the motivations of the developed countries. The scepticism stems in part from the unwillingness of the developed countries to agree to a review of the fall-out of the Uruguay Round before proceeding further down the road of selectively opening up trade. But more crucially it is also related to the two issues which are expected to dominate the discussions: first, the linkage between trade and environmental concerns; and second, the proposal to incorporate a social clause in the trade agreement. The testimony of Ambassador Richard Fisher, Deputy United States Trade Representative, to the Trade Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Finance on July 14, 1999 is revealing. Elaborating on the Clinton Administration's trade agenda, which will have at its centre a new accelerated negotiating Round for the 21st century, he included among the initiatives to be taken up by the US the following:

• Addressing the intersection between trade and environmental policies. Trade and environmental policy need to be mutually supportive. As trade promotes growth domestically and overseas, we must at the same time ensure clean air, clean water and protection of our natural resources, as well as effective approaches to broader questions like conservation of biodiversity.

• Addressing the intersection between trade and labour. Again, as in our domestic economy, growth can and should be accompanied by safer workplaces and respect for core labour standards. There is room for the WTO to collaborate with the International Labour Organisation on some of these issues. As the President has announced, the Administration is requesting $35 million in FY 2000 for a new multilateral program in the ILO to provide technical assistance for international labour rights initiatives, such as eliminating exploitive child labour, and for our own Department of Labour to help our trading partners strengthen labour law enforcement. These and other such efforts should be a focus of renewed co-operation with the ILO.

To quote free-trade enthusiast T. N. Srinivasan once again: "the most serious external threat to developing countries in the post-Uruguay Round world trading order is from the attempts to link their market access to performance in non-trade related areas such as protection of the environment and labour standards. The pernicious notion that a country with lower environmental and labour standards, when it exports its products to another with higher standards, is engaged in eco-dumping and is in unfair competition has gained ground... diversity in labour and environmental standards (at least as far as purely domestic environmental insults are concerned) is legitimate, No country should be coerced to set those standards at levels that are not sustainable given its stage of development. There is also the danger that the movement in the developed countries genuinely concerned about environmental degradation and interested in the improvement of labour standards in poor countries will be captured by those who wish to use it for their own crass protectionist purposes. It is clear that if the developed countries are not willing to compensate poor countries for raising their standards beyond what they could sustain on their own but coerce them through denial of access to their own markets, the liberalisation of market access in the post-UR world will have no meaning for poor countries." These and the arguments delineated earlier, provide strong reasons to struggle for an agenda of "standstill, review and roll-back". But as in the case of the Uruguay Round the interests of the developing countries are unlikely to influence the decision whether negotiations should begin or what should be their agenda.