WTO and the Civil Society - Influence of NGOs at Hong Kong Ministerial Conference

Many of the worlds trade ministers gathered for the World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December 2005 discussing the Doha agenda. Present at the negotiation as well as the delegates were a large number of non-governmental organizations or NGOs. My intention with this paper is to study the influence of the NGOs pre- and during the conference in Hong Kong. The influence will be studied by using a framework set up to study influence of environmental NGOs in negotiations. Following the framework I will use two types of data namely NGO participation and Goal attainment. The data once summarized will be analyzed by using the methods of process-tracing and counterfactual analysis. In the study the process leading up to the negotiation as well as the actual negotiation will be covered. The study gives many indicators of influence, primarily from the larger more well-established NGOs. Furthermore the sensitive issues, state-exclusive form of the WTO, partial secluded negotiations and difficulty of placing formulations in the drafts were obstructing the NGOs from having more influence over the process