Introduction and overview

The scope of the agenda for the agricultural trade negotiations in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was influenced to a considerable degree by the coalition known as the Cairns Group, an agenda-moving group that succeeded in subjecting its domestic agricultural policies to international negotiation. This initial outcome of the coalition's activities was a significant achievement and a departure from the agricultural agenda in previous negotiating rounds, an agenda that had been deficient because the contracting parties had avoided the issue of domestic agricultural policies. The main leadership of the group has been, and continues to be, provided by Australia. In the four years following that country's petulant behavior at the GATT Ministerial Meeting in 1982, a more positive attitude was adopted toward international diplomacy in the area of agricultural trade policy, for example, by producing the so-called Red and Gold books, thereby bringing into the public domain an evaluation of the self-inflicted economic harm done by agricultural policies. Hence, at Punta del Este in 1986, the Cairns Group was able to help establish, through skillful diplomacy with the US and the European Union (EU), the agenda for the agricultural negotiations.

During the negotiations, the coalition maintained substantial and unified pressure on these major players. This, in itself, was an achievement because, since the group's inception, there had been internal tensions within it: between “North” and “South” over the issue of services, and between Canada and Australia over agricultural policy matters.