The name is absent

21

have accordingly complained that the rules have been designed with insufficient regard for their particular
policy preferences or their distinctively different institutional conditions.

Some proponents of universal application of the rules have argued that most of the obligations
placed on developing countries are, in any event, welfare-enhancing since they modernize legal and
administrative systems and promote the integration of the countries into the global economy. This judges
the rules by the economists' efficiency criterion and, whether the assertion is true or not, it implies an
approach that is not consistent with the character of the WTO as a system of rules based on consent given
voluntarily.

It is not, of course, practicable that, in a complex, cooperative arrangement like the global trading
system, every country should agree to every rule. Consensus has to be reached, and it is right that the
world’s largest traders should exercise the most influence. But reasonable attention to all differing views
and interests is a precondition of voluntary compliance

For many developing countries, a major criticism of some of the rules generated by the Uruguay
Round has been that they place constraints on their development policy options. Rules of conduct
governing the use of some domestic policy instruments, which are primarily intended to protect market-
access commitments from nullification or impairment, have appeared to clash with the use of these
instruments in pursuit of national development. We have already mentioned the subsidy rules, which will
be discussed further below. But a similar concern applies to the agreement on investment (TRIMS),
which placed other restrictions on national development policies, particularly in prohibiting import
content requirements designed to promote backward linkages as a condition of inward FDI.¹⁴

¹⁴Investment again figured among the Singapore issues proposed for the Doha Development Round as did
government procurement, which may be another instrument of development policy, but these issues were later
dropped, following the September 2003 WTO Cancun Ministerial Meeting.

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