Millions, even billions, of the world's population will be affected by the outcome of the World Trade Organisation's ministerial meeting in Geneva today, which must decide on whether to go ahead with another round of negotiations about changing trade rules.
The WTO has become a more effective and inclusive body in recent years, with the capacity to make a real difference.
If the meeting fails to agree on how to conduct the talks, the cause of trade liberalisation will most likely be set back seriously, following previous failures at Seattle in 1999 and Cancún last year. If it succeeds, talks will proceed in the hope of reaching agreement soon on a round that would boost world growth, incomes and employment.
This "development round" was initiated in Doha, Qatar, in 2001 and is intended to benefit especially the world's poorer states. The objective would be achieved by opening up access to the richest markets, particularly for agricultural goods, in order to balance further opening of the markets of those poorer states.
Three major blocs dominate these talks. The richest states, including the United States, the European Union and Japan, jointly control the majority of world trade and have benefited enormously from its opening on favourable terms in the last 20 years. They face strong demands to dismantle their direct and indirect export subsidies on agricultural goods which depress world prices and often cripple development in poorer parts of the world. Irish farmers have a direct interest in the outcome, since exports of cattle and meat would be affected if these demands are conceded.
A grotesque example of the issues at stake is that while cotton production is between 5 and 10 per cent of gross output in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Togo, some 25,000 US cotton farmers receive more in subsidies (about $3 billion a year) than the entire output of Burkina Faso, where two million people depend on the crop.
Arrayed against the rich states are the Group of 20 intermediate income countries including India, Brazil and China; and the poorest Group of 90, often depending on particular commodities to survive in world markets. A development round properly so-called must spread its benefits to these two groups - including by opening up more trade access between them too.
A fair outcome is difficult to achieve when national power and sectional interests are so nakedly deployed. It is difficult to judge in such a notoriously arcane field. But there can be no doubt that these rules do make a real difference to millions and millions of people.