This thesis sets out to answer the question: What roles and responsibilities have accrued to the
European Commission in relation to its operations within global trade negotiations, how have these
been interpreted and pursued, and how have they been affected by changing patterns of interests
and institutions in the world trading system?
The thesis has as its central empirical focus the activities of the European Commission in the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) from 1995 to 2003—that is to say, from the foundation of the
Organisation to the failure of the Cancun Ministerial. It focuses on the roles and responsibilities of
the Commission within trade negotiations and identifies the ways in which it has been affected both
by the interests that it serves, or confronts, and by changes in the broader context of the
negotiations themselves. The thesis argues that the need to maintain this complex balance of roles,
responsibilities and interests in a changing environment creates patterns of path dependency and a
search for consistency that reduces the possibility of creative adaptation on the part of the
Commission. [Continues.
