Secretive and undemocratic

The WTO's more powerful members use a number of arm-twisting tactics to put pressure on other countries and achieve their key goals. Many developing countries cannot compete. The Seattle 3rd Ministerial Conference actually broke down and ended in failure for this reason: because of a lack of transparency, openness and fairness in decision-making.

All or nothing

The decision-making process within the WTO is complex. One of the rules is that all decisions must be agreed by "consensus" - all members must agree.

What's more, all issues must be resolved at the end of a WTO trade meeting - there must be agreement on all issues, or else there is agreement on none and the meeting will end in failure. It's all or nothing.

This puts a great deal of pressure on countries that may be "holding out" on one issue, to give in - or face a political and/or economic backlash from other members.

A system of trade-offs that trade away the environment

This rule also creates a system of "trade-offs." In other words, because all issues form part of one package, governments will often trade off something they want on one issue, to give them a better chance of winning something important on another issue.

This system is most advantageous to powerful countries that have more to trade and more to gain. It also means that issues on the WTO agenda, including environment and health-related issues, can be traded away in this negotiating game.

Meetings behind closed doors

The WTO employs a series of tactics that keep it hidden from the public. Most of its decision-making processes are completely closed - only governments can participate and provide input. This closed-door, invitation-only type meeting completely de-legitimises the process and its outcome. It also ensures that the negotiations are weighted in favour of more powerful countries.

Before each Ministerial meeting, there are often "mini-ministerials" which are meetings of government Ministers held to try to build consensus before the big meeting. The most difficult issues are discussed, and countries start to work on "deals." However, because these mini-ministerials are by invitation only, only a handful of countries are even present. NGOs have traditionally been locked out.

It is interesting to note that the US, European Union, Canada, Australia and Japan are a few of the examples of countries that are always present. The negotiating reality is that these countries are the ones that can make or break deals, and whose input really counts.

There has also been a history of documents being held back, rather than quickly declassifying them and making them publicly available.