A WTO multilateral framework for competition policy and trade-induced development: debunking their complementarity in developing countries

The issue of competition has assumed prominence in the global marketplace due to increasing private anti-competitive practices which thwart multilateral trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization. This article examines the history of efforts to devise a global competition policy in the context of the relationship between competition policies and the economic development needs of developing countries. It examines, in particular, the implications that a multilateral or universal competition policy would have for developing countries. It concludes that a WTO multilateral competition policy is a prematurely conceived, rickety idea under the existing circumstances of global trade, especially given the inherent problems of the WTO system, which it examines in some detail.