the summit of major industrialized countries kicks off in July, one of the things the world will be waiting to see is whether the leaders of these nations will be able to launch a new round of multilateral trade liberalization talks under the World Trade Organization.

Needless to say, the leaders will have to overcome a number of obstacles if they are to be successful.

Let us try to examine some of the key points here: First, it seems necessary to review the causes of the miserable failure of the Third Ministerial Conference of the WTO held in Seattle last December.