TRADE: New Round of Talks No Longer Taboo Subject at WTO

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 4 2001 (IPS) - The possibility of a new round of international trade negotiations is no longer the touchy topic of discussion at the World Trade Organisation it used to be, though officials continue to take a cautious tone.

The controversial matter re-emerged during the preparatory discussions Thursday for the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference, slated for November in Doha, Qatar, an event that – so far – has not triggered much tension compared to prior conferences.

The notion of a new round of global trade talks became taboo for the WTO since efforts to launch it failed miserably at the December 1999 ministerial conference in the US city of Seattle, Washington.

It was some time before negotiators acknowledged that the Seattle fiasco was the result of a clash between the uninhibited aspirations of industrialised countries to open more markets for their exports and the resistance of the nations of the developing South to continued liberalisation without tangible benefits.

At the most recent session of the WTO General Council, similar positions resurfaced, but without the intensity of the confrontational attitude that predominated in Seattle.

Uruguay’s trade representative before the Geneva-based WTO, Carlos Pérez del Castillo, cautioned that the relevance and the credibility of the international trade body itself are at stake, and that it cannot run the risk of repeating Seattle’s debacle in Doha.

But there was noticeable improvement in the tone of the debate in Geneva. A WTO source said that the deliberations this Thursday had been very positive and productive.

The debate revolved around a proposal by the Chairman of the general council, Stuart Harbinson, of Hong Kong, who presented a list of potential items to be included in the Doha agenda.

On his list are some of the same points that caused so much tension two years ago in Seattle, such as rules on investment, competition and transparency of government acquisition, and the facilitation of trade.

These four questions still cause trade negotiators from developing countries to cringe as they interpret the measures as attempts by wealthier countries to expand their power over international trade.

The poorest countries insist that, before moving on to new matters, the 140 members of the WTO must comply with all the commitments they have already made, most of which are dead letter for wealthy countries.

This claim, crucial for the countries of the South, refers to the application or implementation of agreements, such as those covering textiles, which are intended to benefit poor nations but have been largely ignored by the industrialised world.

Trade delegates from several nations, including Munir Akram of Pakistan and Federico Cuello, of the Dominican Republic, warned that without progress on implementing already-agreed items, it would be very difficult to take up matters outside the talks about agriculture and services, begun more than a year ago.

The Marrakesh accords, which gave rise to the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade talks and which created the WTO in 1995, established as a mandate that agriculture and services should be renegotiated beginning in early 2000. The current discussions in these areas are making slow progress.

The countries of Mercosur (Southern Common Market – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) and the bloc’s associate members (Bolivia and Chile), warn that the success of the agenda for the fourth ministerial conference will depend on the progress made on these two areas and on implementation.

Uruguay’s Pérez del Castillo commented that the WTO has two options for handling the challenges presented by the Doha conference.

The first involves the launching of a new round of trade talks, with a scope that is yet to be defined, but which must cover the points necessary to “include everybody’s interests.”

The second option rejects a new round from the start, proposing instead that the ministerial conference focus on evaluating the progress made in the application of agriculture- and service- related measures and in the ongoing negotiations about these areas.

According to the second alternative, the ministers at the Qatar meeting could still reach a point in which they would instruct their delegations in Geneva to lay the groundwork for a new round of global trade talks to begin at the following ministerial conference two years later.

The Uruguayan delegate’s idea was well received in general terms and will be the subject of debate during the next sessions of the General Council, May 10-15, said WTO sources.

During Thursday’s preparatory discussions, developing countries also demanded dialogue on the consequences of the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) on human health worldwide.

The Tanzanian representative, on behalf of what are know as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and the delegate from Mauritius, on behalf of the African group, maintained that the WTO should “affirm its support for affordable prices of essential drugs.”

There were referring to a differentiated pricing system that would make medications for treating AIDS available to poor countries devastated by the disease, especially those in sub- Saharan Africa.

The debate on access to low-cost medicines for poor countries has heated up since the withdrawal of a lawsuit filed by 39 transnational pharmaceutical companies against South Africa to block the country’s legislation favouring free access to medical patents in cases of health emergencies.

Similar cases are pending at the WTO. On behalf of drug companies, the United States has filed a complaint against Brazil for its pharmaceutical-related legislation and is threatening to do the same to Argentina for its law on patents.