Revisiting the WTO DDA Negotiations: 
Analysis of its Current Impasse

Youngjeen Cho

The DDA negotiations were launched in 2001, the first under the auspice of the WTO. The goal of the DDA was to further liberalize trade and to improve existing WTO rules. This paper examines the question what has caused the current impasse of the DDA. In order to address this que-stion, the paper reviews the history of the DDA and anal-yzes critical issues of the negotiations. The lack of con-sensus is due to key players failing to minimize the gaps in their positions on critical issues, such as market access of agricultural products. This paper outlines the critical issues of the DDA negotiations and explores the challenges the DDA had to confront.