WTO not only show in town at Cancun

The WTO roadshow is a slow one, moving only once every two years, but what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in oddness, not least in its choice of venues. In 2001 we were in Doha, the capital of Qatar, a desert kingdom in the Persian Gulf boasting one of the most luxurious shopping malls in the world, complete with ice rink.

This time we were in Cancun, a seaside resort built in 1974 after it was chosen by a Mexican government computer study as the ideal location for attracting US tourists. The plan has been remarkably successful and hundreds of thousands of young Americans arrive each year to drink, swim, sunbathe, party and then drink some more.

Many bars offered a "drink as much as you can" deal for a modest entrance fee and most hotels were happy to serve cocktails in the swimming pool. Next to the WTO conference centre, the Bulldog Bar advertised its upmarket credentials with a giant hoarding: "Have You Got Class? Champagne Nights. Girls Don't Pay!"

If Cancun is a drunkard's paradise, however, it is an architectural aesthete's nightmare - a succession of big, brand new hotels right on the beach, some in faux-Mayan or Aztec pastiche styles. Huge billboards clutter every corner and American food chains such as Pizza Hut and McDonald's are everywhere.

Inside the conference centre, ministers from each WTO country, now 148 following this week's accession of Cambodia and Nepal, took turns to address the plenary. Nobody listened to a word they said, however, because the real negotiations were done elsewhere, in so-called "green rooms" into which the chairs of each working group invited selected delegates to bargain over the issues, usually at night.

The EU and US were in every green room because they had an interest in every aspect of the talks, but many small, poor countries were excluded from most of them. The EU team was led by Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, and Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, but they were bound by the ministers of trade and agriculture from the 25 EU present and future member-states, who met every day.

A survey by the British charity War on Want found that 83 per cent of developing country delegates in Cancun believe that the WTO is undemocratic and dominated by rich countries.

But if the WTO is so bad for poor countries, why do countries such as Cambodia and Nepal want to join? Cambodia's commerce minister, Mr Cham Prasidh, complained this week that his country's accession terms were too harsh and said that Cambodia was joining the WTO in the hope that the organisation was changing.

"If we were not confident that the WTO was taking care of the interests of the developing world, we would not join yet. We would wait. We are joining because we see a positive trend in the WTO since Doha and that's the reason why we've speeded up our accession negotiations," he said.

Mr Conall O Caoimh, policy officer of Comhlamh, a campaigning group of Irish development workers, said that poor countries had little choice but to join the WTO because the alternative is to make bilateral trade deals with rich countries.

"If they stay outside, the rich countries will cherry-pick which countries they like for a mixture of political and economic reasons. The WTO is a rules-based system. At least you are treated equally to the country next door. Outside, it's a jungle," he said.