When Mike Moore looks back on his rollercoaster ride as head of the WTO, he gives himself a mixed bag of grades and admits that he flunked the most decisive test.
"I deserve an F for Seattle," says Moore of the disastrous 1999 meeting which ended in acrimonious failure inside the conference chambers and full-scale battles between rioters and police on the streets of the North American city.
"While it may not have been my fault, it is certainly my responsibility, and I didn't see certain things coming," said the former New Zealand prime minister, who leaves his post as WTO director-general next Saturday after three years.
Such was the bitter taste left from Seattle that governments managed to agree to a new round of trade liberalizing talks only in November last year -- this time safely out of reach of protesters in the Qatari capital of Doha.
For that one, Moore gives himself an A minus.
Frustratingly for the ebullient New Zealander, he will now be confined to the sidelines as the task of trying to complete the negotiations -- by the deadline of 2005 -- falls to his successor, Supachai Panitchpakdi.
The former Thai commerce minister takes over for a three-year term on Sept. 1 under a much-criticized power-sharing deal reached because governments couldn't agree on which man should get the job.
The high-profile organization that Moore leaves behind bears scant resemblance to the little known talking shop he took over. The birth of the anti-globalization movement in Seattle has turned it into a virtual household name.
Many of the meetings at the WTO's elegant lakeside headquarters are behind tight security. On occasions, Moore walked past protesters chained to the banisters of the staircase to his office.
Despite his Labor Party and trade union roots, Moore has little sympathy for WTO opponents who claim that free trade increases poverty in developing nations, damages the environment, infringes on national sovereignty and destroys jobs.
"The evidence that trade helps raise living standards and alleviate poverty is overwhelming. We cannot allow anti-trade protesters to win the argument by default among the public at large," he said.
His position has been clear: free trade benefits everybody. The challenge is to ensure that everybody has the capabilities to take advantage of it.
Insisting regularly that he was a Pacific islander who understood the problems of isolated nations, Moore set out to improve the lot of small and poor countries unable to keep full-time staff in Geneva. He organized weeklong events for visiting diplomats and improved systems for getting information to non-resident delegations.
He also tried to reorganize the WTO secretariat to improve efficiency and accountability, using the recently reformed New Zealand civil service as a model.
"I am frankly used to a more professional, particularly a more loyal, civil service," he said of the staff, which currently numbers 550.
"We couldn't sack people, there was no paper trail, there was no harassment policy, there was nothing. We had too many admirals and not enough battleships," he said. "For restructuring, I would give myself a C plus. I could have done more."
At least he can take pride that he will be remembered as the director-general who finally saw the entry of China into the WTO after 15 years of negotiations. He believes that the other major power outside the trade system -- Russia -- could join soon, though he admits disappointment that there is little progress toward admitting OPEC stalwart Saudi Arabia.
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