Abhijit Das, Strategies in GATT and WTO Negotiations Oxford University Press, February 2025

In the WTO, all members are equal, but some are more equal than others.Giants like the United States, European Union, and China leave a large wake due to the size of their markets or their share of global trade.Small, dynamic players of high ambition like New Zealand, Singapore, and Costa Rica drive initiatives and build coalitions through sheer force of hustle and will.Yet any list of WTO members that had an outsized influence on negotiations -from the GATT to the 14th WTO Ministerial Conference -could fail to include India in a place of prominence.This is precisely why this book, written by former Director of the Trade Policy Division in India's Commerce Ministry, is a fascinating read.Das's book attempts to do several things and speaks to a range of audiences.It is part academic overview, part negotiator's guide for developing countries, part historical memoir, and part personal reflections from a storied career on and near the frontlines of trade negotiations.It weaves together in one run of paragraphs game theory, the GATT/WTO Rounds, and General Kutuzov's wisdom in the Russian campaign against Napoleon.This mixed approach is perhaps where the book is strongest, benefitting from both the author's vast experience, significant research, and polymathic and eclectic knowledge.Suffice it to say that the book covers a lot of ground.It begins with a brief introductory guide to the history and core components of the WTO and the GATT.It is a concise and generally fair primer, though it does at times leave the reader yearning for more insight into the narrative arcs and negotiating dynamics that the author is better placed than most to illuminate.For example, the book describes multi-year Indian and Brazilian "resolute resistance" to bringing intellectual property into the WTO "collaps[ing]", but misses the opportunity to flesh out the ups and downs of what is almost certainly a fascinating and potentially edifying tale.The bulk of the book delves into discussions of negotiating tactics for developed and developing economies in the GATT/WTO context and then explores a broader meditation on those dynamics.For those not already inclined to agree with Das's central thesis of scheming and underhanded developed countries looking to strong-arm the world's poor into disadvantageous deals against heroic opposition by a valorous Indian-led coalition, the book becomes considerably more challenging.In no small part, much of what he writes rings true.Readers would be advised to treat these characterizations as strategic insights from an experienced negotiator and an eloquent presentation of the Indian perspective on proceedings, rather than obsessing over the objective fairness of every characterization.From where the author sat, this is how he saw things.The book is for the most part appreciatively clear on when the author is speaking from direct knowledge and when he is drawing conclusions through inference or supposition.In reading the characterizations of developed country strategies, the key takeaway should be how the results were perceived, and the impression given to developing country interlocutors.To name just one example,