This is an impressive book. Developing countries have been playing an increasingly important role in multilateral free trade negotiations over the years, and this is one of the first works to focus on the trend and subject it to rigorous analysis. The book is theoretically strong as well as practically useful for national representatives wishing to know how to succeed. Each empirical chapter is, in turn, rich in detail and in line with the overall objectives of the book. Anyone interested in the future direction of free trade negotiations at the global or regional level will therefore do well to read it.

In the introductory chapter, John Odell lays the groundwork for the rest of the book. This is an effort, he states, to understand how three specific dimensions of negotiation—“coalition design, strategies used by states and coalitions, and dynamic subjective interactions” (p. 2)—help national representatives from developing countries achieve positive results. A fourth important variable also comes under scrutiny: the institutional context in which negotiations take place. Odell is quick to point out that negotiators themselves—operating with “bounded rationality” (p. 2)—are often unaware of what helps them attain their objectives. Indeed, he adds, many of the outcomes of recent negotiations have been counterintuitive for everyone aware of the facts beforehand. Thus, the authors are after something no one fully understands yet.

With this in mind, Part I is dedicated to negotiations happening in multilateral settings (the World Trade Organization in particular). Chapter 2, by J. P. Singh, focuses on the negotiations over intellectual property rights and services during the 1986–94 Uruguay Round. The main finding is that changes in the interests of nations pertaining to a given coalition (in this case, the North or the South) can tip outcomes one way or the other. In Chapter 3, Odell and Susan Sell use the 2001 WTO's unexpected declaration on intellectual property and public health to focus on strategy: A mixed-distributive approach (in which negotiators put forth objectives that seem to advance other parties' interests as well as their own) works generally better than a purely distributive one (where goals are set in terms of one party against another). This conclusion is also supported by Amrita Narlikar and Odell in Chapter 4, with their analysis of the failure of the Like Minded Group (a coalition of several developing countries led by India) during 1998–2001 to prevent certain items from being part of trade negotiations. The final chapter of this section, by Cécdric Dupont, Cosimo Beverelli, and Stéphanie Pézard, is about dynamic subjective interactions. Here, attention goes to information processes, convergence of viewpoints over time, and learning, as well as what representatives can do to maximize their results. The data come from a simulation exercise used at the WTO Training Institute.

Part II focuses on regional-level negotiations. In the only chapter on the topic, Antonio Ortiz Mena L. N. offers powerful insights into the often overlooked fact that Mexico managed to protect key energy sectors (in particular, oil exploration) from liberalization in the NAFTA agreement. The key to Mexico's success was its mixed-distributive response (which entailed “opening with mostly distributive moves and mixing in some integrative ones near the end” [p. 192]) to the strict distributive approach of the United States. Also important was the ability of Mexican negotiations to take advantage of information biases in the United States, especially those generated by a decentralized political system and the multitude of perspectives that such a system fosters—something that the Salinas administration learned in the late 1980s when dealing with the Bush administration in the area of debt negotiations. This latter point brings us back to the third dimension of the book—dynamic subjective interactions.

The chapters in Part III depart from the previous chapters and from most research on trade negotiations by looking at what developing countries have achieved during the dispute-settlement stages of the WTO. Christina Davis argues in Chapter 7 that developing countries have, as a whole, benefited from the availability of legal adjudication in the WTO context. Countries that do not belong to the WTO have fared far more poorly. The key reasons are the existence of rights, common standards, the option for countries to join a dispute, and incentives that developed (and developing) states have to change a policy found to violate trade rules. Evidence comes from Peru's successful challenges within the WTO to the European Union's labeling policy on scallop and sardine exports, and Vietnam's failed efforts to have the United States stop discriminating against its catfish exports. In the final chapter, James McCall Smith examines the fascinating story of how Ecuador successfully managed—by wisely using the WTO's rules and structures—to force the EU to comply with WTO rulings on banana imports.

One can only learn from reading this book. I will nonetheless close by mentioning two small shortcomings. The most obvious is the absence of more chapters on regional-level bargaining. It is difficult to know whether the broader lessons of the book apply to such settings when the only region-level evidence comes from a specific case study on Mexico and NAFTA. In this vein, a chapter on the Central America–Dominican Republic–United States Free Trade Agreement, for instance, would have been welcome. The second weakness is the absence of a concluding chapter. The introductory chapter certainly makes an effort to draw conclusions. But this cannot be done properly before the reader has had the chance to digest what lies ahead. These, however, are minor shortcomings that in no way undermine the merits of this excellent book.