TRADE: New WTO Directorship to be Double Occupancy

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 20 1999 (IPS) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) will elect its new director general this week, using a formula that satisfies the two factions that have been fighting over the post for the last 10 months.

An informal meeting of the WTO’s general council Tuesday resulted in an agreement which names both competing candidates – Mike Moore of New Zealand and Supachai Panitchpadki of Thailand – as the organisation’s new director general.

The decision establishes that the general director’s term will be divided in two terms of three years each. Moore will take office this September 1, with Supachai to take over Sep. 1, 2002.

The bases of the agreement, which is expected to be approved this week, include some new procedures for the WTO that reflect the negotiating strength of the developing countries involved, most of which supported Supachai’s candidacy.

The principle of reaching geographic balance predominated in the debate on naming the four sub-directors, introducing new criteria for the WTO’s regional distribution of power – a balance which already exists in other international forums.

Brazil’s representative Celso Amorin received broad support for his proposal that the distribution of sub-directorships also be balanced between developing and industrialised nations.

Nacer Banjelloun-Touimi, head of the Moroccan delegation, agreed with naming four sub-directors based on a geographic balance, and declared that one of these posts corresponds to the African continent.

The naming of sub-directors will take place in September after Moore assumes office.

However, it is expected that the current president of the general council, Ali Said Mchumo of Tanzania, will establish guidelines for the selection of sub-directors in a presidential declaration, also to be made this week.

The election process of the new WTO director general has dragged on since last October, when Moore and Supachai were presented as candidates, along with Hassan Abuyoub from Morocco and Roy MacLaren of Canada.

The first election removed MacLaren and Aboyoub from the running, but subsequent votes only polarised the delegations from the 134 WTO member countries. The organisation had been bogged down in the conflict between the candidacies of Moore and Supachai since then.

When the former director general, Renato Ruggiero of Italy, resigned from office on April 30, the WTO began a leaderless era which caused concern among those involved in trade negotiations.

Worry began to spread because the organisation is in the middle of preparations for its thrid ministerial conference to be held in the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington, in November.

This pushed the WTO to make its Solomonic decision, unprecedented among international institutions, to divide the term of its highest leadership post, splitting it between two candidates.

Federico Cuello from the Dominican Republic explained that it was important to all delegations that the WTO arrive at a solution that would at least allow the organisation to resume its normal work.

The solution leaves many procedural and legal loopholes, said Brazilian representative Amorin, but his country will not throw obstacles in the path of consensus, he added. The WTO requires consensus for the adoption of its resolutions.

Most delegations shared the Brazilian delegate’s objections, but they also resigned themselves to accepting “the lesser evil.”

Rita Hayes, head of the U.S. delegation, stated that the agreement’s text is not perfect, but because the candidates are so well qualified, it was understandable that there were so many difficulties in reaching a compromise.

The election process of the director general revealed the legal deficiencies of the WTO structure, which lacks explicit regulations for designating its highest official.

Amorin referred to these loopholes as “a structural problem.” The WTO is an international institution that has maintained the structure of its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which operated “like a private club,” criticised the Brazilian delegate.