Green Room need to be sure that they hear all views, and their discussions have to be
faithfully reported to all interested members in what some negotiators refer to as a
transmission belt. One obvious benefit from all the new groupings therefore is that
Members can work together to share information, develop positions and proposals, and
decide who should be in the Green Room.
Since the WTO does not have a formal constituency system, even for electoral
purposes (that is, groups of countries whose main purpose is to elect a representative
to sit on a committee, as in the UN system. See Walker 2004), groups have formed on
an ad hoc basis. These groups coordinate among Geneva ambassadors, and they have
ministerial meetings. The small groups relevant to the agriculture negotiations come in
many varieties (see Table 1).7 It has been conventional to refer to groups as
“coalitions”, but I am using the term “groupings” here. Hamilton and Whalley (1989)
distinguish between groupings created to move the agenda, make proposals, block
others, and negotiate. Most groupings can do any or all of these things, but some
characteristics make a group (or coalition) better suited to one or the other. Some of the
developing country groupings are based on common characteristics, such as regional
groups. By working together, these countries can share technical expertise, they can
aggregate such market power as they possess, and they can use their collective moral
authority to insist on recognition of their concerns. Other groupings are organized on an
issue-specific basis, such as the Cairns Group. Such groupings can pursue either an
offensive or defensive agenda, meaning that they seek improvements in their market
access position abroad, or seek to minimize the disruptions for their own farmers. The
effectiveness of these groups was obvious in Cancùn, although the disparate basis of
the geographic and sectoral groupings made it easier to oppose than propose. Many
groups are essentially homogenous, but some groups are heterogenous, because they
cross groupings. Finally one type of closely related small group meeting plays an
essentially managerial role in attempting to build packages that cross the various
negotiating areas of the round, including trade in goods and services as well as
agriculture.
7 For a discussion that separates such developing country groupings into formal groups or alliances,
informal issue-based groups, and “grand alliance” inter-group alliances, see (Bernal, et al. 2004, 12ff). On
WTO coalitions, see also (Drahos 2003; Draper and Sally 2005; Narlikar 2003).
10