India has been an active player in the WTO, as it had been in GATT.  It has been playing an important role in the WTO negotiations that are now ongoing as part of the Doha Development Agenda. Moreover, India has also been an active participant in the WTO’s new dispute settlement system. As a complainant, India has had some notable successes in attacking various safeguard and dumping measures taken by the US and the EC that have affected Indian textile exports.  At the same time, India has been the subject of US and EC complaints – focused mainly on its general import quota system and India’s treatment of pharmaceutical product patents. While the quota system was being liberalized by India’s government by its own choice, the policy changes required in the pharmaceutical sector have been done recently by the third amendment to the Patnets (amdndment) Act, 2005.

Now that the world has had a full ten years’ experience with the new WTO disciplines and its dispute settlement system, it is a particularly appropriate time to assess the WTO’s performance to date.  we are published a new book – “World Trade Organisation and India: a Critical Study of Its First Decade” – edited by two leading Indian authorities on the WTO – KD Raju and JK Mittal. This ever-growing literature has sorely needed a systematic, agreement-by-agreement, critical examination of the WTO’s rules and the way in which they impact developing countries. India’s position as the world’s most populous democracy makes its experience in the WTO and the way in which the WTO agreements impact it a particularly interesting story – one that is particularly instructive for the developing world in general.  This superb collection of articles puts all of the important WTO and world trade issues in perspective and in an appropriate context – it covers not only all of the important current agreements, but also proposals for new agreements.  Its Indian and developing country viewpoints are unique. As such, the book is a particularly valuable addition to the literature on the WTO and could usefully be read by trade policy professionals everywhere, particularly in the developing world.

It is pertinent to note that the Sutherland Report, accused the WTO for making the poor more poor and rich more rich.  It is necessary to discuss what gained out of the WTO by developing countries in the last decade.  It will help the majority developing countries to formulate their future policies for the Honk Kong Ministerial.