DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION: South Needs More Influence In WTO’s Corridors

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

GENEVA, May 23 1998 (IPS) - Developing countries avoided losing ground at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s Second Ministerial Meeting here, but achieved little else — highlighting the need for them to be better prepared for future trade negotiations.

The outcome of the May 18-20 meeting could have been worse. Some industrialised nations want talks to be launched within the WTO on additional subjects such as investments and competition policy, whereas most developing nations oppose this.

In the end, no new issues were adopted save a non-binding declaration on duty-free treatment for goods and services traded electronically, which was proposed by the United States.

The General Council of the WTO shall establish a comprehensive work programme to examine all global electronic trade issues, the ministers said in a final declaration on global electronic commerce.

“The meeting really didn’t cause a disaster for us but it created a role in which the rich countries can now put in their agenda and we need to be able to strengthen ourselves,” said Martin Khor of the non-governmental Third World Network.

Khor said it was now critical that developing nations beef up their presence in Geneva so that “we can gear up for negotiations. It’s better to do it now otherwise it would be more expensive later if we don’t fight for our rights.”

African diplomats said one of the disadvantages they faced in engaging western negotiators was their limited numbers. This, they explained, eroded their negotiating capacity in Geneva, especially since, on any given day, there are three to four meetings

going on at the WTO building here.

“By and large, this meeting opens the way in the next 18 months for the possiblity that these rich countries are goig to push for more for themselves and we need to strengthen ourselves to be able to defend against that,” Khor told IPS.

For the developing world, the agenda ought to have been the issue of implementation, but it ended up being dominated by pressure from the richer countries, notably the U.S. and the Europe Union, for more opening up.

Despite the fact that very few countries — about 10 out of the WTO’s 132 members — had been involved in discussions on electronic commerce, more time was devoted to this subject than any other.

“When African ministers came to the second World Trade Ministerial Meeting, they had a message with a very strong concern for greater commitment to the issue of implementation,” said Yao Graham of the Africa Trade network, a grouping of NGOs, research institutions, and media oganisations.

“But from the final declaration at the end the WTO ministerial meeting, it is very clear that there is only a cursory acknowledgement of that issue.”

The fact that the next ministerial meeting — in 1999 — will be held in the United States, makes it even more likely that the issue will be pushed aside as the U.S. and Europe try to bring new issues to be agreed for negotitiatons, Graham feels.

“That the U.S. managed to get its proposal on Electronic Commerce to be considered by the meeting at the last minute, is a graphic example of U.S’ power in the organisation,” he argued.

Most African delegations and NGOs only got to know about the U.S. deal at the start of the ministerial conference. But by Wednesday, just about everyone had been supporting it. “This sadly illustrates the problems within the ranks of the developing coun tries,” said Graham.

Khor commente that rather than rush and dwell on an issue that they did not know about and did not need, the ministers should have focussed on all the changes that are going to take place in the next few years.

“At the end of the day the real focus of the meeting became the new agenda of opening up even more,” Khor told IPS. “So it’s quite clear that U.S. and Europe wants to add in more issues and that may even cause more instability to the developing world, for example issues of investment, government procurement, competition plicy, trade and environment.”

Nongovernmental organisations (NGO) deplored the way the U.S. managed to force its declaration on Electronic Commerce on WTO members. In a joint statement, 18 NGOs from around the world lambasted the process saying it was “most untransparent, undemocra tic and non-participatory”.

“Electronic commerce is a complex issue,” they added. “Asking for tax-free status for things transmitted through electronic means has many implicatins. The benefits will almost exclusively accrue to corporations of developed countries whose aim is inc reased market access through the move.”

According to the NGOs, the U.S. proposal was “something that fell from the sky.” Most NGOs from both the North and South only found out about it on Monday, hours before it was put before the ministers.

This, commented the NGOs, makes a mockery of statements to the WTO ministerial meeting by US President Bill Clinton and WTO Director Renato Ruggiero on increased transparency and participation in the WTO.

“Statements have been made here about greater trasparency and opening up to civil society, but from the declaration, you get the immpresion of a one-way perception, of public relations rather than an interactive process,” said Graham.

He also lamented the fact that few African journalists covered the meeting. “To me this is a statement of just how this important busines of the WTO is still bypassing Africa,” he argued. “There were fewer than five African journalists out of about 20 0.”