WTO Negotiating Process To Cancun Worsens
Dear Friends,
Not only are the majors trying to delay a
draft declaration to as late a stage as possible so that delegations in Geneva
have very little time to react, strategize, co-ordinate and demand the
necessary changes to draft texts, Canada and New Zealand have come out openly
in yesterday's (19 June) informal WTO Heads of Delegation meeting reinforcing
the need for non-transparency.
At the meeting, India and Malaysia voiced
the need for the draft to be prepared on the basis of views and inputs at
open-ended consultations, and where there was no consensus, to clearly indicate
the differing positions or views. This position was also supported by China.
Canada opposed this, as did the New
Zealand's representative, Mark Sinclair, who said that the Membership should
relay on Chairpersons' judgments, based on meetings and private contacts with
delegations, ie. implying that Chairs can come up with their own version of
what a compromise position is, claiming that this is the middle ground, and disregard
and marginalize the positions of developing countries. This is of course what
Stuart Harbinson did pre-Doha, in his draft which endorsed the launching of
negotiations in the new issues.
Never in the history of the GATT / WTO,
has it become the custom whereby ALL chairs of negotiating bodies come up with
'Chairman's texts' that do not reflect Members' divergent positions. This has
become the practice in the WTO since Doha.
Such a rule-less process means that the
outcome of the negotiations will essentially be based on countries' political
clout - exactly what the WTO was supposed to mitigate. IT WILL THEN MAKE IT
NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO stop the launch of the NEW ISSUES.
There is right now still NO clarity on what
shape the outcome of Cancun will take - the Chair at the 19 June HOD meeting
was very careful not to call it a Ministerial Declaration. Instead, he termed
the 'paper/s' they will produce in Cancun as a 'focused and operational
document'! Essentially this will be a combination of some reports and some
recommendations.
NEW ISSUES
There is still a stalemate in the New
Issues right now over modalities - where the proponents are only fleshing out
procedural modalities eg. no. of meetings to be held etc in the hope that
Developing countries will not stall negotiations. Negotiations would almost
certainly not be successful for the EC if real substantive negotiations on
investment etc are brought up. EC et
al's strategy has angered developing country delegates, who told the developed
countries at an informal TNC meeting on 16 June, that substantive modalities
must be dealt with. Developing countries' ministers, may however, find the EC's
procedural 'modalities' quite innocuous and hence agree to negotiations...
Another worrying development is that the
New Issues have risen up in the negotiating rank - now consultations are being undertaken under General Council
auspices, rather than under the 'Working Groups' which have completed all their
meetings. This is rather significant, since Working Groups oversee discussions,
but the General Council oversees negotiations.
The Chairs of the working groups are continuing to facilitate the consultations.
However, since they have not been mandated by the Working Groups to do this,
they have changed their titles to 'Friends of the Chair'!
One developing country delegate this
week, in comparing the present current preparatory process with the Doha
process, said, "Doha was the pinnacle of arm-twisting. It was the best
show on earth. They have tasted blood and now they know exactly how to do it.
Which is why the show never took off here." He said that it is easier for
them to ram things through with the Ministers. The majors now know exactly how
to get what they want with our ministers.
The is an appeal to NGOs to provoke your governments, as much as possible, on the process issues - in particular the fact that drafts must reflect all major divergent positions - The countries pushing for non-transparency include US, EC, NEW ZEALAND, CANADA, AUSTRALIA (since it was the co-ordinator of the paper that was submitted in response to the LMG paper, asking flexibility for Chairpersons). The other signatories of that problematic paper in July 2002 were MEXICO, SWITZERLAND, HONG KONG and SINGAPORE.
Developing country NGOs should call on
their governments to walk out of the process should the draft declaration, to
be out by mid July, not reflect their positions. This is also an issue that
must be given attention in the media.
I attach Raghavan's article on
yesterday's HOD meeting here.
The process will also be reported on by
Shefali in her coming update.
Best wishes, Aileen Kwa, Focus.
SUNS #5368 Monday 23 June 2003
WTO ignores calls for democratic, inclusive
processes for Cancun
Chakravarthi Raghavan
Geneva
From Monday to Wednesday, public interest civil society groups, as
well as several developing-country government participants, at various panel sessions at a public
symposium at the WTO, identified the non-transparent and undemocratic
decision-making processes at the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main
reason for the organization's bad image.
The same message apparently was given by
some NGO leaders on Sunday to the head of the World Trade Organization, Dr.
Supachai Panitchpakdi, who has been trying to get a range of non-governmental
organizations to be in an advisory group to dialogue with him and the
secretariat from time to time on WTO related issues.
However, on Thursday at an informal
Heads-of-Delegation (HOD) meeting convened by the Chairman of the General
Council, Mr. Carlos Perez del Castillo of Uruguay, it became more evident that
whatever the growing public protests and clamour outside, the informal
non-transparent and non-inclusive processes of drafting and decision-making
will continue during the preparatory processes leading up to the 5th
Ministerial at Cancun, and at Cancun too.
In fact even apart from the demands of
the civil society, for over a year now, the WTO and its General Council has
before it a proposal signed by a group of developing countries calling for
orderly procedures in the preparations for future WTO ministerial meetings and
at the meetings themselves -- procedures that are well-accepted as norms in any
conclave or organization of sovereign independent states, even in those where ultimately
'Power' prevails.
Only in the multilateral trading system,
first under the old GATT and now the more binding WTO, has a different culture
of decision-making been in practice as the norm, as a result of which the
powerful not only prevail but pretend and announce a non-existing consensus.
Neither the power-brokers in the secretariat
nor the majors are willing to give it up, and increasingly even those parts of
civil society within countries and internationally who want a system and rules,
are beginning to realize that the WTO is incurable, and may need to be closed
down as a system of rules covering trade and non-trade issues.
At the informal HOD meeting, Perez del
Castillo cited the relevant paragraphs of the Doha declaration and work
programme, and said that the purpose of the Cancun meeting would be for
ministers to take stock and give any necessary political guidance.
The declaration draft for the
consideration of ministers, and for adoption, would thus not be like that at
Doha - since no decisions are to be taken, but only the progress on the work
programme is to be reviewed.
Perez del Castillo and the WTO
Director-General and Chairman of the Trade Negotiations Committee outlined the
time schedules ahead - a TNC meeting on 14-15 July to hear reports from chairs
of various negotiating bodies, and the TNC chair in turn reporting to the
General Council meeting on 24-25 July. As
now envisaged, the General Council chairman will have a first draft for the
Ministerial Declaration by end July.
After July, frequent meetings at informal
HOD consultations by the Director-General and the General Council are to be
held to consider the draft, and a check-list of issues prepared and circulated
would be the instrument for managing the process.
The checklist sets out the subjects of on-going
work for Ministers at Cancun to review and provide necessary political
guidance:
* Agriculture - modalities for further
commitments, including provisions for S&D treatment and subsequent
submission of comprehensive draft schedules; * Non-Agricultural Market Access -
modalities for negotiations; * Services;
* Rules; * Dispute Settlement - agreement
on improvements and clarifications no later than May, and steps to be taken to
ensure that the results enter into force as soon as possible thereafter; *
TRIPS (system of notification and registration of Geographical Indications for
wines and spirits) - conclusion of negotiations; * Trade and Environment.
The checklist adds that it should also be
noted that consultations are continuing in pursuit of the TNC's mandate to take
appropriate action on Implementation-related issues and concerns in accordance
with paragraph 12 (b) of the Ministerial Declaration, and at the level of the
General Council on S&D Treatment issues, following the report by the
Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development in February.
Also listed are work in the General
Council and other bodies reporting to it on outstanding issues:
* TRIPS and Public Health, S&D work
programme, implementation-related issues and concerns in accordance with the
Doha Ministerial Decision on Implementation-related issues and concerns; *
Singapore Issues - Relationship between Trade and Investment, Interaction
between Trade and Competition Policy, Transparency in Government Procurement,
and Trade Facilitation. "The Fifth Session will decide by explicit
consensus on the modalities of negotiations."
Malaysia proposed that this checklist
should be 'frozen' (i.e. no additional subjects should be added) in the
preparations for Cancun. This was opposed by Canada and New Zealand. Some other
diplomats said it was not clear whether (apart from opposing a fully
transparent and participatory preparatory process and the reflection of
different views to the Ministers) these countries opposed the Malaysian proposal
because they wanted to bring in new issues, or merely to leave the scope open,
or just cussedness in opposing suggestions from developing countries.
Dr. Supachai also indicated that in terms
of the mid-July TNC meeting, some chairs of the negotiating bodies had told him
that they could update, on their own responsibility, and give reports on the
progress in their groups, and that he would encourage others to do so.
This really means that even where the
negotiating groups have concluded their substantive work before Cancun, the
chairs could make any report based on their perceptions!
In other matters, during the discursions
at the informal HOD meeting, Mexico, India and the US wanted the draft
declaration to be brought out as soon as possible, with the US suggesting a
'skeletal draft' even if it could not be fully fleshed out.
However, the General Council chair
reportedly did not believe it would be helpful.
A number of developing countries wanted
the draft to be prepared on the basis of views and inputs at open-ended
consultations, and where there was no consensus, to clearly indicate the
differing positions or views.
Canada opposed this, arguing that there
had been no consensus on this proposal that had been made by several developing
countries. New Zealand insisted that the chair's draft should be based not only
on inputs in the consultations, but also any bilateral and other consultations
held with delegations.
Even a 'simple' demand from Malaysia at
the informal HOD meeting, that the preparatory process and the content of any
draft declaration should not bring in issues not already listed in the
chairman's check-list of issues, and that any draft sent to Cancun from the
General Council should, in the absence of consensus, clearly reflect the
differing positions, was not acceptable to Canada and New Zealand, who often
act as surrogates and speak when the US and EC do not want to come into the
open.
Judged by the stance of the majors, even when they speak through 'allies', and of the WTO leadership, the preparatory processes for the 5th Ministerial at Cancun - the drafting of a declaration for Ministers and the way issues would be presented to them for clarification or decision, will be more or less the same as the non-transparent, undemocratic processes that have characterized the 55-year-old trading system and there is no certainty that more new issues will not be smuggled in at Cancun.