The Meeting: The Battle In Seattle

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Many, like Daley, would argue that peace and prosperity can flourish only if trade barriers are torn down. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledged in a speech that "the trading system is one of the great success stories of the past half-century." At the same time, he added, with a quarter of the globe's population mired in poverty, multinational companies risk a wave of protectionism unless they commit to "global corporate citizenship" in the form of concessions to labor, human rights and environmental health.

Such is the challenge of the WTO, the newest and arguably most powerful global institution on the block. If the protests in Seattle do not degenerate into anarchic violence, and if the negotiators can somehow put aside their cantankerous brinkmanship, a new dialogue is likely to be opened on--naive as it may sound--how to make the world a better place.

--With reporting by Hannah Beech/Hong Kong, Steven Frank/Toronto and James L. Graff/Brussels