A decade after the "Battle of Seattle," when an international trade summit in the US city collapsed as thousands of anti-globalisation protesters fought police on the streets outside, delegates from more than 100 countries will gather at the World Trade Organisation's lakeside headquarters in Geneva tomorrow, pledging to defend free trade in the face of the economic crisis.
But with the WTO's director-general Pascal Lamy insisting there will be no formal negotiations in the long-delayed Doha round of international trade talks at the three-day summit, the unspoken fear in many countries is that even without the intervention of a new generation of furious rioters, globalisation is in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future.
When complex discussions aimed at finalising the Doha round broke down acrimoniously in Geneva in July last year, many countries hoped that a new US president would bring a breath of fresh air to the tough job of agreeing new, fairer rules for international markets.
But more than a year after his election, President Obama, fighting enemies at home over healthcare reform and the domestic economy, has shown little interest in pursuing a new international agreement. Optimists talk of a "window", between winning a healthcare bill and focusing on next year's mid-term elections, when Obama could rapidly turn his attention to the international trading system, allowing a 2010 deadline set by the G20 to be met. But privately, it's hard to find anyone with much confidence.
"There's not a hope of it happening next year," says Simon Evenett, a trade expert at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.
Britain is among many countries that have become increasingly irritated with America's detachment. Gareth Thomas, minister for trade in the Department for International Development, who is going to the Geneva talks, said: "We have been disappointed that the Americans have not engaged, and have not felt able to engage more in the negotiations."
He expressed surprise that American firms have not made a stronger pro-free-trade argument, leaving the vociferous farm lobby, which is keen to protect its generous taxpayer subsidies, to carry the debate in Washington.
"There would be huge benefits for American businesses from a deal being signed, just as there would be for UK businesses," he said. "It's desperately frustrating that the American business community are not speaking up."
In the developing world, the financial crisis of the past two years has deepened scepticism about whether trade liberalisation, privatisation and financial deregulation are a short cut to prosperity. Global financial markets transmitted shockwaves from the US sub-prime markets into distant countries, and the worldwide collapse of confidence after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt caused international trade to plummet.
Nevertheless, the Doha round's original purpose was to help make the market fairer for firms and farmers in some of the world's poorest countries, and many would still like to see it brought to successful completion.
Aileen Kwa of the South Centre, which monitors the goings-on in Geneva on behalf of developing countries, says: "At the moment, because the US hasn't figured out its trade strategy, and doesn't have an ambassador in Geneva, there's a certain amount of frustration on the part of developing countries."
She also says America has been agitating to keep other uncomfortable issues – such as the knock-on effects of the multi-trillion-pound bank rescues on poor countries – off the WTO agenda.
"The US is the gatekeeper – every time other countries say 'let's think about the financial crisis, or the impact of the bailouts', the US says 'this is beyond the WTO's mandate'," she says.
Evenett says part of the problem is that with so many countries now involved in the process of agreeing an international trade deal, negotiations are impossibly complex. The world's great trading powers – the US, Europe and Japan – can no longer simply stitch up a broad outline, and expect everyone else to tag along.
"This is the first trade round where we have realised that everybody needs to sign on the line at the same time to make this happen," he says. "Globalisation is ongoing, but the process of big, rule-making deals is over for at least 10 to 15 years."
Europe's difficulties in securing a ceasefire in the long-running "banana wars" are a case in point. Baroness Ashton, the outgoing trade commissioner, announced earlier this month that she was on the brink of a breakthrough. But with Latin America demanding rapid cuts in Europe's tariffs on imports of the fruit, while Caribbean producers are angrily defending their preferential access to European consumers, talks have dragged on, and will have to be taken up by Ashton's successor, Belgium's Karel De Gucht.
Britain's Gareth Thomas, like many of his counterparts from around the world, refuses to admit defeat on a Doha deal. "We certainly hope that there's going to be a bit more momentum and enthusiasm to stick to the 2010 deadline that the G20 has set," and there may well be warm words in Geneva this week.
But 10 years after the Seattle riots, the world's richest countries appear too preoccupied with cushioning their own citizens against the worst effects of the world economic crisis, to be pushing for a new wave of liberalisation. For now at least, it seems the anti-globalisers may have won.