Like the good Count of Transylvania, the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of negotiations has died more than once. It first collapsed during the WTO ministerial meeting held in Cancun in September 2003. After apparently coming back from the dead, many observers thought it passed away a second time during the so-called Group of Four meeting in Potsdam in June 2007 — only to come back yet again from the dead. Now the question is whether the unraveling of the most recent “mini-ministerial” gathering in Geneva was the silver stake that pierced the trade round’s heart, rendering Doha dead forever.

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