Caracas Chronicles

When I’m not rambling about Chavez, I’m preparing a doctoral dissertation about the World Trade Organization. Here are a few posts on that entirely unrelated topic.

First off, there’s my attempt to syntethize, in non-technical language, why it is the current round of WTO negotiations is hopelessly deadlocked:

Second is this short write-up on the way the deadlock is concentrated on just a handful of products:

Next, a note on how the WTO’s monstrously convoluted Agricultural Subsidy classification system came into being:

Then, a write-up summing up the outcome of the December 2005 WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong:

My post from Day 4 of the Hong Kong ministerial, explaining the European Union’s oddly inflexible position:

My post from Day 3 of the Hong Kong ministerial, noting the developing world’s increased engagement with the negotiations:

This post from Day 2 of Hong Kong is an early attempt to deconstruct some of the more baffling aspects of WTO Diplo-bureaucratic jargon – particularly that most slipperly of formulations – “a balanced agreement.”