The WTO has been hailed as an achievement for multilateralism and the so-called Development Round, launched in Doha in 2001, has promised a world trade order which tak es ing developing countries’ interests seriously. Yet So far, however, the WTO’s impact on the world’s poor has been overwhelmingly negative, and the developing countries’ opportunities possibilities to change the policy agenda are limited. The formal equality of member countries is a façade , behind which the rich countries exercise their power “ by with other different means. ” The process of Decision-making takes place behind closed doors and only between a select few. Considerable amounts of arm-twisting and political pressures are brought to bear on countries that attempt to break a with the “consensus .” . In social and economic terms, 10 years of WTO-led liberalization and the trade regime’s fixation on exports as the route to development have not produced the promised outcome. The objective of poverty alleviation has been missed in most of the least developed countries. The WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture provided the cover for the US and the EU to continue their high tariff and non-tariff border protection policies, as well as their enormous subsidies to producers, which have had disastrous effects on the agricultur al e sector in developing countries. The Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) has limited developing countries ’ ability to possibilities of regulat e ing foreign investors, which is critical if countries want to obtain capture the benefits of foreign direct investment. Based on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the EU and US put pressure on developing countries to open their services markets, although the economic, still much less the social , impact of this step is uncertain. There are clear risks, however, that liberalization and privatization of essential services will disproportionately affect the poorest sectors of society . Finally, the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) widens the divide between those that have the technology and those that do not. Whilst the rationale for TRIPS is that there should be a proper balance between the right s of the inventor and the public interest s, the twenty-year patents stipulated by TRIPS give s all the power to the patent holders. Overall, the WTO institutionalizes the subordination of development to corporate free trade. A viable trade regime cannot prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution, but must be loose enough to allow for a wide diversity in its members’ economic arrangements. However, But one of the most striking feature s of the WTO in the last ten years is its inability to reform. The political and economic interests behind its agenda remain too deeply entrenched.