Perhaps the above cri-de-coeur allows us to interpret what is happening at the World Summit: the WSSD process is being subsumed under present WTO agreements — specifically, the ones reached at the last WTO summit held in Doha, Qatar, in 2001 — and even future ones. Thus, a multilateral agreement on eradicating poverty and protecting the environment (= Johannesburg) must conform to the pre-established rules of the multilateral trading system (= Doha). The clauses on trade, finance and globalisation repeatedly make initiatives towards sustainable development conditional on their compatibility with WTO agreements. Civil society is pleading, instead, that the Doha agreements be reviewed through the prism of sustainable development. Apparently the major powers do not want to come to the next WTO round with their hands already tied by agreements reached in Johannesburg.