The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. Trade ministers and other officials from the WTO's 135 member nations met in an unsuccessful attempt to plan negotiations to further deregulate free trade. Tens of thousands of activists for many causes gathered to protest what they saw as the WTO's favoring of corporate interests over social and environmental concerns.

Mike Moore became Director-General of the WTO shortly before the 1999 Seattle conference. Moore had been New Zealand’s trade minister from 1984 to 1990. Moore supported free trade as a way to lift poor countries out of poverty. Here, he speaks to reporters at the Seattle conference.

Caption information source: "WTO's Mike Moore is staunch supporter of poor countries", by Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 22, 1999, page D2.