Listen to the anti-globalisation protesters and you might conclude that Su-pachai Panitchpakdi, who succeeded Mike Moore at the helm of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this week, has just become an extremely powerful man. After all, according to its critics, the WTO is an unbridled, secretive outfit that skews trade rules for the benefit of big business. Unfortunately for Mr Supachai, reality is more mundane. The WTO is a fractious club of 144 member countries that acts by consensus. Any single country, however small, can block proceedings. The WTO'S top man has one of the lowest salaries among international bureaucrats. And, compared with, say, the boss of the International Monetary Fund, he also has remarkably little power. He cannot even formally set the WTO'S agenda. The job of heading the organisation is more like managing a bickering professional associ-ation than running a global government.
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