Members, coalitions and the trade policy community

The ways that countries represent themselves in Geneva and coordinate action with other members have undergone important changes since the late GATT period. Four trends stand out: more countries have acceded (as discussed in Chapter 4), more of these members have established permanent missions in Geneva, more of those missions are dedicated exclusively to trade rather than to Geneva-based institutions in general, and the number of personnel assigned to both the dedicated missions and the general-purpose missions has risen. The net result was that the total diplomatic manpower that countries deployed in Geneva grew more than five-fold from 1982 to 2012. The composition of the Geneva negotiating community also evolved. Whereas the Quad (Canada, the European Union, Japan and the United States) had once dominated GATT, and were almost alone in having large and GATT-dedicated missions, many more negotiators now hail from developing countries. That is true not just for the largest emerging economies but also for several other developing country members that “punch above their weight” in the organization.