"We cannot conclude this Doha Round without your explicit support" said WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy to parliamentarians from around the world attending the 2011 session of the annual Parliamentary Conference on the World Trade Organization which took place in Geneva on 21 and 22 March. The Conference is a product of the collaborative efforts of the IPU and the European Parliament. It serves as a de facto parliamentary dimension of the WTO, enhancing its democratic transparency and accountability.

In the words of Canadian Senator Donald Oliver, who co-chaired the session together with Stavros Lambrinidis, Vice-President of the European Parliament, the fact that this year's session was taking place on WTO premises was "a long-awaited and politically symbolic step along the way to endowing the WTO with a meaningful parliamentary dimension".

The session was attended by over 300 participants and observers from 62 countries, including 170 members of parliament. Also present were government representatives of many sovereign States that are members of the WTO.

The session programme included a series of thematic debates, panel discussions and a hearing with the WTO Director-General. Held in the form of interactive exchanges, they dealt with a variety of themes such as "Multilateralism in the midst of the rising tide of bilateral and regional trade pacts", "Rebalancing the rules of the multilateral trading system in favour of the poor", and "Trade and sustainable development: from collision to cohesion".

The concluding discussion was somewhat different from other segments of the programme: its guest speakers were not trade diplomats but journalists who write about the WTO and thus influence the way millions of people think about globalization and trade. Entitled "Connecting to society: Trade policy-making in the era of mass communication", the panel discussion was conceived as an informal exchange about common misconceptions and stereotypes regarding the WTO and international organizations in general. The ensuing discussion was frank and outspoken, and rich in diverse perspectives.

At the end of two days of work, the session adopted an outcome document encouraging WTO Members to make the most of the narrow window of opportunity to conclude the Doha Round by the end of 2011.