Roberto Kanitz has done a great service by weaving together a theoretical and legal analysis of the role of the Chair in managing negotiations in the WTO. He then brings this analysis to life with a series of contributions either by Chairmen who have presided over the delivery of results in some of the most difficult of GATT/WTO negotiations or by negotiators who have participated in these negotiations.

Kanitz has managed to obtain invaluable contributions by or about the most effective and experienced of GATT/WTO Chairmen. Moreover, these contributions contain a rare and refreshing frankness as they openly deal with negotiating failures as well as successes. The contributors refrain from too much diplomatic caution and niceties – e.g., the Seattle and Cancun Ministerial Meetings are described, correctly, as debacles – and opinions about the reasons for the failures of meetings are clearly explained and attributed.

The book begins with a different type of preface – by Celso Lafer, a former Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations and Brazil's Ambassador to the WTO from 1995 to 1998. As Chair of the Dispute Settlement Body and Chair of the General Council of the WTO, his contribution not only contains his own ideas and commentary that are of considerable stand-alone interest, but he provides an extensive, accurate, and readable executive summary of the subsequent contributions.

For those familiar with the WTO, a reading of Kanitz's book will refresh memories of struggles in past negotiations and bring to life many of those who contributed to making the WTO into the current day's extensive body of rules and commitments. This includes Arthur Dunkel, Peter Sutherland, Julio Lacarte Muro, Lars Anell, Don Kenyon, Pierre-Louis Girard, Enrique Inglesias, Carlos Perez del Castillo, Andrew Stoler, Stuart Harbinson, and too many other participants to be named in this short review.

These personalities are among the most experienced and most successful contributors to the building and expansion of the multilateral trading system now represented by the WTO. This book describes in detail how these Chairmen put aside managing their considerable organizational or national responsibilities to achieve consensus on a great range of complex issues on behalf of the wider interests of WTO members. It details how they went about these difficult tasks, providing many anecdotes as well as examples of methods and techniques employed by Chairmen to bring about such results.

The volume deals extensively with the negotiating parameters and objectives of the Doha Development Round, which has been so mired in disagreement and difficulties as well as with controversial negotiating practices such as small group forums (the so-called ‘Green Room’ among others). Such unsettled issues give the book added currency and relevance.

A clear conclusion from this book is that WTO Chairs are extremely important in the process of brokering results of a consensus nature among sovereigns with widely differing interests. But they can only succeed when the political leadership in the major developed and developing countries are sufficiently enlightened to act to promote the economy-wide interests of the people they represent. Sadly, this essential ingredient seems lacking at present. But perhaps there is a role for WTO Chairs to take a more active role in key capitals, as they sometimes have in the past.

The book is extensively footnoted for those who wish to follow up on particular issues. Furthermore, the Annexes provide historic listings of WTO Chairs’ periods of service and are thus a valuable WTO resource of Chairmen, decisions reached, and other aspects of rules and procedures of the WTO.

This is essential reading for WTO practitioners and of great interest to all negotiators and students of the art of negotiation and international economic diplomacy. All WTO diplomats and capital's based officials with responsibilities for WTO affairs would be well advised to keep a copy of this book close to their desks. Others with interests in the WTO or the ‘real politic’ or management of negotiations will also find real value in this book. And those who are called upon by their WTO peers to serve in a chairing capacity will find wisdom and inspiration from those who have preceded them.