To blame the World Trade Organisation for the stalling of trade liberalisation andthe troubled Doha round of talks is like blaming a World Cup final referee for the quality of football.

The WTO secretariat, with a couple of hundred professional-level staff, advises, facilitates, informs and sometimes mediates trade negotiations, but in general does not direct them.The WTO refers to itself as a "member-driven organisation". In the institutional trade-off between agility and democratic accountability it leans heavily towards the latter. It reaches decisions by consensus, which in theory gives each of the 150 member countries a veto.