Strategies Used by Developed Countries at the Negotiating Table

Abstract This chapter provides a comprehensive account of the strategies and tactics used by the developed countries at the multilateral trade negotiations at the GATT and the WTO table. These include the following: keeping reluctant countries hooked to the negotiating table, coercive strategies such as exercising raw power to browbeat negotiators, sharing the negotiating load and fighting each other’s battles at the negotiating table, burying issues of interest to developing countries by not engaging, spinning a spider’s web to impede progress on issues of interest to developing countries, starting soft but landing hard, salami tactics, manipulating information to secure advantage in negotiations, pressure-cooker strategy, divide and prosper and creating a facade of consensus through the use of ‘clean negotiating text’. Most of these strategies and tactics have escaped the attention of researchers. Further, not many negotiators may be able to discern that on account of these strategies they have got the short end of the stick at the negotiating table. Based on first-hand accounts of a large number of trade negotiators and the author’s personal experience, this chapter brings to light these strategies and tactics, which have been repeatedly deployed by the developed countries.