"This is serious stuff; these issues are complex," said Oxley, a former Australian ambassador to the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the forerunner to the WTO. "And people should be punished for introducing unrelated issues into the process, and here I'm including TRIPS [Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] and health in that respect." TRIPS agreements are best known for covering the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies who make drugs.

The notional "gold medals," on the other hand, were awarded by Rachel Thompson, of the Free Trade Writers Group in London to the following: "The US for its measured and generous role this year. The reason there's no Seattle inside, versus outside, is that this year the US has really taken a leadership role in compromise. TRIPS was one of the most highly charged issues that I have ever seen, even negotiators can get emotional on subjects, and this one was resolved here mostly due to the US.

"The European Commission for being sensible in recognizing that this is a collective system. The WTO can only go into new areas if a majority of its members want it-and here the Europeans realized that clearly the majority of members don't want to go into standards based talks.

"And Africa. They have been organized, and hung together. Many anti-globalization NGOs say they don't understand the issues at hand. That's a lie. They do know, several delegations were staying at my hotel. In speaking with them I was impressed with their organization and grasp of the issues. They knew what they wanted and went after their points with consensus." Coalition members said they welcomed the possibility of new round talks, but that textiles and agriculture were the two last, and most difficult issues left to be discussed on Tuesday. "The trading nations will take a step closer to alleviating poverty by launching a new round of trade liberalization talks at Doha," said Oxley. "No single other act by the global community can better help to address basic problems in the current global economy."

"There is an enormous difference in agreeing on the agenda, what expectations will be in finishing this round," said Owen Lippert, a visiting fellow at the Instituto Libertad y Desarrollo (Liberty and Development) in Chile, and spokesperson for the International Policy Network. "One could say it could take as long as Uruguay. But what will be most important will be to put a commitment to trade liberalization on the table for developing governments. The European Union (EU) will put agriculture on the agenda and will use external pressure for internal reform. Japan will do the same."

The coalition turned instead to speculation on how many years a "Doha round" will last. "It will not last as long as the Uruguay round, two to three years is the expectation, and I think that five, six, seven years might be reasonable to expect," said Oxley.

One of the benefits of a new round, Thompson said, is that countries could use the excuse of a continuing round of talks to use external pressure to force internal change in trade policies. "If you go back and look at the Uruguay round which stopped and started intermittently, you see surges when countries were capable of reforming, and those surges always broke off at election times," said Thompson.

If there is a round, "The importance of the round is that countries like Turkey, Pakistan, all the developing members have a chance to equalize talks in the EU," said Thompson.

"The international economy is not a zero sum game," said Lippert. "There is no limit, it's not like divvying up a pie, and I think that's important for developing countries to understand. Markets will keep growing and expanding."