I have covered WTO minister-level meetings in Cancun in 2003, in Hong Kong in 2005 and this time in Geneva. All of them ended in failure, disappointment and anger, but the feeling this time was of profound sadness.

United States Trade Representative was so overwhelmed with emotion that she left without completing her sentence while speaking to the media soon after the talks broke down. A little later, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fisher Boel choked on her words during a press conference with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, who described the failure as "absolutely heartbreaking." Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said he was "disappointed." As one of the persons blamed for being inflexible, he might have been trying to put up a brave front. I am sure he felt a deeper sense of loss.

The whole thing came unstuck over the issue of special safeguards mechanism. These are defences in the form of additional duties that about a hundred developing countries, led by India, were demanding to check a price slumping surge in imports of farm produce. All the negotiators agreed that the defences could be triggered on three occasions: when imports rose by 15 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent. But in none of these cases could they exceed the maximum permissible duties that they had agreed to. Developing countries saw this restriction as frustrating the remedy. In the case of apples, India's maximum permissible duty and the rate it currently imposes are the same: 50 percent. If imports - probably subsidised - rose overwhelmingly, farmers would be exposed - and ruined. This would be true of pepper, cardamom, chilly and - soyabean - that is grown in Kamal Nath's constituency. So the India-led group argued that duties should be allowed to pierce the ceiling.

They saw this not as a trade barrier, but an emergency provision to deal with contingencies. To allay apprehensions, India said it would resort to this measure only when prices slumped (hitting subsistence farmers hard), and could allow audit by a group of WTO experts.

But Schwab feared setting a precedent. Once a country commits itself not to exceed a certain level of duty, that undertaking is supposed to be irreversible. This is a basic principle of the WTO. She also did not wish to run into opposition from US lawmakers, who recently overrode a veto from President Bush to approve a farm bill that doles out humungous subsidies to US farmers. So she agreed to allow emergency import duties to exceed the ceiling, but to ensure they were exceptional, said the trigger would be a high 40 percent surge in imports. China was uncomfortable with this rate, but not to the point of letting the talks collapse. But India would not budge from 15 percent. In Mandelson's memorable words, "an irresistible force met an immoveable object, to devastating effect.

Did India go for broke? Some in the Indian delegation suggested a compromise. The US says India's imports of Indonesian palmoil have grown by more than 40 percent in three of the past six years, but there has been no panic. India says recent high prices cannot be a measure. Kamal Nath says he is looking at 10 years hence.

Could India have agreed to set safeguards aside, and allowed talks to proceed on other sticky issues like US cotton subsidies (about $3 bn for 25,000 farmers) that have devastated farmers in Burkino Faso, Mali, Chad and Benin, and are the subject of a dispute at the WTO? US watchers, say this is a touchy issue and Schwab would not have been able to make concessions, which is why she kept the focus on safeguards.

But India was also leery of moving on to other issues and risking isolation. Already Brazil had broken ranks and given in. The 70 percent duty cuts that the US and the EU had agreed on beef and other imports, gave it what it was seeking. There was talk of a US deal with Brazil on ethanol.

China was also seeking concessions as a recently acceded member. That would have left India without an ally. Accepting a defence trigger of 40 percent would have brought accusations of a sellout on Kamal Nath. "It is a question of optics," said a senior negotiating official. Currently imports can be banned if they cause harm, but injury has to be proved. What was being offered in Geneva was an add-on. Hopefully, the Indian negotiators were not talking hypothetically, but on the basis of past experience.

What next? India has proved that, unlike Brazil, it is a champion of developing nations. But in the process, has it undermined the WTO? A lot was achieved in Geneva. There were many issues left to be resolved. But a string of failures since 2003 has provoked a rethink about the WTO process, though all the principal players affirmed faith in the multi-lateral trading system. "If the WTO did not exist, it would have to be reinvented," said Schwab.

Each WTO round of talks covers liberalisation in trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services as part of a single undertaking. Taking up each issue apart may not be possible as compromises are based on give and take, some less than the others. But that also made the talks complex. After Geneva it cannot be business as usual.