It was said that the failed World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations at Cancún in September 2003 have plunged the WTO into crisis. Given the aim of this round of negotiations at taking stock of progress of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) launched at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, the breakdown in Cancún was said to be the final blow to the credibility of a multilateral trade system embodied by the WTO unless negotiations get back on track, posing certain impact on the globalization strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs).
             Coming into existence in 1995 from the Uruguay Round of negotiations, the WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) established in 1947 with the purpose of liberalizing trade and negotiating trade concessions among member countries. Simply put, the multilateral trading system that was originally set up under GATT has been well over 50 years old.
             The inauguration of the WTO in 1995 marked a new phase in the evolution of the post war economic system. A new "triangular division of authority" among the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO was enabled (Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, Journal of International Affairs (Columbia University), Vol. 52, no. 1 (Fall 1998) )
             'GATT and the WTO have helped to create a strong and prosperous trading system contributing to unprecedented growth.' According to the website of the WTO, merchandise exports grew on average by 6% annually in the past 50 years while total trade in 1997 was 14-times the level of the 1950.
             'The WTO is now the umbrella organization that governs the international trading system' with overriding objective to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably.
             The deregulation of trade under WTO rules enabled multinational corporations to easier penetrate local markets and extend their influence andor ...