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WTO-CANCUN: Caribbean Better Prepared, but Wary of ‘Big Boys’

Dionne Jackson Miller

MONTEGO BAY, Sep 9 2003 (IPS) - The developing states of the Caribbean, many of them small island nations, go into the World Trade Organisation meeting in Cancun, Mexico this week hoping that better preparation will translate into tangible gains at the global trade talks.

But while expecting to build on previous successes and incremental gains, Caribbean nationals say they are also well aware of the advantages held by the rich and powerful developed nations.

”Our success last time (at the 2001 ministerial meeting in Qatar) was to make sure that a work programme on small economies was set up; now we want to see it make significant progress,” Richard Bernal, director general of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Regional Negotiating Machinery told IPS.

Although the Qatar meeting decided that a work programme should be established for small economies, Bernal noted that there is currently no accepted definition of a small economy.

The World Bank, he noted, has defined a small economy as one having less than two million people, which would rule out Jamaica, a Caribbean island with a population of 2.6 million.

”If you’ve not defined small economies, how can you define measures to help them?” asks Bernal, a respected negotiator who previously chaired a small economies working group within negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the proposed free trade zone that would stretch from Alaska to the tip of South America.

Without a clear definition of a small economy, he adds, member countries are not sure whether it is in their interest to push concerns of small economies.

The Caribbean is hoping to make progress on this and other issues at Cancun through collective strength and networking. Although the WTO does not recognise groups such as CARICOM, a regional trade bloc of 15 countries, Bernal says that all CARICOM member countries will have the same agenda.

”We will operate as a single entity, working towards a common set of objectives,” he says.

The Caribbean is also hoping to benefit from its membership in a variety of groupings, ranging from the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, the small economies group, the Commonwealth, and the Latin American, all of which are meeting ahead of the official start of the conference Sep. 10.

This type of preparation and unity is crucial, Bernal says, given the not always transparent process at such meetings.

In the past, developing countries have bitterly criticised so-called ”green room meetings”, private gatherings attended by special invitees only, which Bernal says, allow the ”big boys” to hammer out consensus without the knowledge or input of other WTO member states.

But over the years, developing countries have become more sophisticated and are much better prepared, he says.

Caribbean nations, for example, have developed a thorough technical brief, tabled a ministerial declaration, and spent several days in intense strategising, preparing all spokespersons from member countries to push a collective agenda of previously agreed-upon priorities and areas of flexibility.

The Caribbean Declaration raises warning flags on a range of issues, including continued erosion of preferential market access for exports, inadequate adjustment periods following the end of access, and lack of compensation for attendant losses in earnings.

It also expresses disappointment at the ”lack of appreciation by some powerful countries for the acute vulnerability of small Caribbean economies” and the consequent harmful implications of WTO challenges, and the lack of progress on matters concerning developing countries, such as implementation issues, special and differential treatment, and agricultural reform.

The declaration makes a 26-point call for action, including a demand that the special vulnerabilities of small developing economies, small island states in particular, be taken into account when trade rules are formulated and applied. It says agricultural negotiations must take into account rural development and the food security concerns of small, developing economies by preventing surges of cheap, subsidised food from developed countries.

In addition, the region wants developed countries to commit to specific actions, as opposed to their previously stated intention to assist developing countries with so-called ”best endeavours".

”In the past they have agreed to best endeavours,” Bernal explains, language that does not commit the developed world to any particular action.

”We want it to be specific and capable of enforcement and implementation,” Bernal says, pointing to, for example, specific time periods for developing countries to allow their economies to adjust to lower trade barriers.

A major issue for the Caribbean is the on-going challenge before the WTO dispute panel by Brazil, Australia and Thailand to existing European Union (EU) trade preferential arrangements for sugar from ACP countries.

Although sugar itself is not a negotiating issue in Cancun, the wider issue of trade preferences will be on the agenda, and is raised in the Caribbean Declaration, which states that ”the current dispute over sugar portends extremely damaging economic and social consequences for Caribbean economies”.

As a result, CARICOM countries are calling for trade preferences to remain, or, if they are dropped, to be compensated for.

The discussions on trade preferences and agricultural issues are being closely followed by the president of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, Norman Grant, from his vantage point in Jamaica.

”Opening up of the trade regime could mean serious devastation for the less developed countries if we’re not given enough time," he said in an interview. "Rather than creating wealth which is the overall aim of globalisation, we could see poverty skyrocket. Cheap products could put local producers out of business,” Grant says.

Although the United States and Europe drafted a joint proposal last month to reduce state agricultural subsidies, developing countries and agricultural experts, including Grant, believe that much more needs to be done.

”When you look at the support that has been given to rural producers and farmers of more developed countries, the subsidies, the interest rate regimes … if we’re not careful and we get caught up in this thing of globalisation and free trade we could become, without even being aware of it, a consuming nation and our productive muscle could be challenged,” Grant says.

Underlying the intense preparation and stark realities of the difficulties of negotiating in the international arena, is, however a thread of hope: the recent landmark agreement allowing poor countries access to generic drugs for major diseases.

The agreement, Bernal says, is important not only for its far-reaching implications for the poor in developing countries, but also because of the precedent that it set.

”It’s the first time in the WTO that members have over-ridden trade rules in favour of humanitarian concerns.”