The epitaph for the World Trade Organisation has been penned many times in recent years but it is not exaggerating to say that the Geneva-based institution now faces an existential crisis.
Next week's gathering of trade ministers in Bali was supposed to show that the WTO was still relevant as a forum for conducting global trade talks.
To be honest, the deal on the table was a pale imitation of the comprehensive package envisaged when negotiations began a dozen years ago in Doha. But it was seen as vital - in the context of the plethora of bilateral and regional talks now under way - for the WTO to pluck some low-hanging fruit.
Unless there is some political give and take in the next couple of days even a mini-agreement cleaning up dodgy customs practices, providing food security and helping the poorest countries will prove unattainable.
That will be the cue for the multilateral trading system to splinter and for the penny to drop belatedly that the WTO is the worst way to cut trade deals, apart from all the others.
