The Doha round is likely to stall out by the end of the summer. In that light, this FT piece by Alan Beattie from last summer is relevant:

The Doha round of multilateral liberalisation talks is behind schedule and in trouble. Prospects for trade seem bleak.

But are they? In practice, according to many trade officials, experts and practitioners, the World Trade Organisation system has so far done a good job of holding protectionist sentiment in check. Some warn that the system will start to give way, or at least that further liberalisation is in jeopardy. Yet, in spite of the stress induced by rapid change in the global economy, there is little sign that the gains from previous advances are being lost.

The bare statistics do not support the idea that a wave of protectionism has swept over the global economy. There has been no rise in the use of “anti-dumping” or “safeguards” actions – emergency limits used by countries to prevent surges in imports. The most recent figures from the WTO, for the second half of last year, showed new anti-dumping actions falling to 103 from 135 a year earlier.

Experts attribute much of the gap between protectionist rhetoric and (generally) laisser-faire practice to the rules of WTO agreements and particularly the judgments of its disputes settlements mechanism, involving three-person panels sitting in Geneva…

Peter Mandelson… believes in the power of global trade rules. “The barriers against protectionism we have put in place over the past decade are strong enough to stand immense pressures and indeed ratchet up liberalisation.”…

Given the slowness of the negotiations so far, it would be a brave observer who bet on rapid progress. But at a time when the world economy is coping with stalling jobs growth in some of the richest nations, colossal global current account imbalances and the emergence of China as a fearsomely huge and efficient competitor across a range of industries, the freedom to trade – so painfully achieved over previous decades – has yet to receive a serious challenge.

Will the WTO’s institutional credibility hold up when there are no ongoing negotiations to futher liberalize trade? Or should we expect backsliding in the wake of Doha’s failure?