Buenos Aires stalemate

Differences in negotiation capability on display

As feared, the ministerial-level meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ended in a stalemate. Hopes that new deals on agriculture or e-commerce will emerge have thus been dashed. The WTO looked particularly helpless in Buenos Aires as it could not even agree to reform the subsidy regime for illegal overfishing that is depleting the world’s oceans — something on which, in principle, there is broad agreement.

One of the most vexed questions of dispute is, of course, the matter of food stockpiles in developing countries. This is of particular interest to India, which has, through its poorly conceived public