Transforming Nations

No visitor to Phnom Penh, Beijing, or Riyadh these days can fail to sense change, optimism, and new economic dynamism. Cambodia, China, and Saudi Arabia are on the move, and mostly for the better. Why? For one thing, because all three countries -- along with Croatia, Georgia, Taiwan, Vietnam, and many others -- have joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the past few years.

The power of the WTO to aid national transformation is easily forgotten. All too often, many developing countries measure their success in the WTO's Doha Round of trade negotiations by the extent to which they avoid obligations to open up their economies. And in polite conversations in Geneva, the potential of WTO disciplines to encourage radical market, institutional, and regulatory reform is a politically incorrect topic. It is the countries that have joined the WTO over the past decade that have drawn the most benefit from global trade rules. Older members, which did not need to negotiate their entry, have probably gained the least.

The WTO has changed the world in the past decade by welcoming China. And if it has changed national fortunes, in Cambodia and Saudi Arabia, for example, it is thanks to its accession procedures. Compared with the terms of bilateral free-trade areas, the terms of WTO membership amount to a revolution. The process is now lengthier than ever. China applied to the WTO's predecessor (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT) in 1986 and joined the WTO in 2001, Cambodia applied in 1994 and joined in 2003, and Saudi Arabia joined in 2005 after 12 years of preparation and negotiation.