Mounting troubles

The 11th MC began on December 10 at Buenos Aires, with many of the important issues in Agriculture, Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), TRIPS, trade in Services, Rules (which includes anti-dumping, general subsidies and general safeguards) and Fisheries Subsidies, waiting to be addressed. In the customary letter of the Director General to journalists, the DG underlined the contractual importance of the WTO in keeping protectionism at check even during the most challenging times. He also recalled the good work in Bali on Trade Facilitation and the Nairobi package, which had given many concessions to LDCs including on market access to cotton producers of Africa, preferential rules of origin and preferential treatment to services and services providers. In the 11th MC here, at Buenos Aires, he outlined the work programme to include outstanding issues in Agriculture (domestic support, market access and public stockholding of food grains), Services (less burdensome regulations) and the need to have disciplines in Fisheries Subsidies. In addition, he referred to three more areas: investment facilitation, e-commerce and participation of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in world trade. The DG also made it clear that he was uncertain about the prospects of progress since the divisions remained deep, but all efforts had to be made.

The negotiations at the 11th MC

The issues for negotiations at the 11th MC were clear enough. There were the outstanding issues, namely public stockholding of food grains and special safeguard mechanism in Agriculture, special and differential flexibilities for LDCs in a variety of areas including services and the cotton issue, which was a demand by the ‘Cotton Four’ (Benin, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali) to discontinue export subsidies in developed countries. The issue of fisheries subsidies was also to be taken forward, as the Chair of the 11th MC mentioned in her closing remarks. In addition, there was the reopening of issues such as e-commerce (whose work programme was agreed in 1998) and issues that were beyond the scope of the ‘single undertaking’ along with the agreed work programme of WTO, namely, investment facilitation, gender and employment and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). The latter were to be taken up as plurilateral sectoral initiatives, which was an attempt by developed countries to bring issues not agreed multilaterally to the table.

While there was much activity on the new issues and those beyond the scope of the work program of the WTO, there was no progress on the core outstanding issues. On finding a permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding of food grains for ensuring livelihoods and food security of the poor in developing countries, there was again stonewalling by the USA, EU, Australia, Canada and Pakistan. Similarly, developed countries such as the US, EU, Canada and others backtracked from the decisions on a special safeguard mechanism and cotton subsidies. This was despite the fact that there was clear evidence that such public stockholding, along with minimum support prices for food grains, was critical for addressing the volatility in production and prices in agriculture in developing countries.

This was a clear backtracking from the decisions taken at the 10th MC at Nairobi. It may be recalled that even in Nairobi, the decisions were not completely in accordance with the demands of the developing countries. Developed countries agreed that there would be a permanent solution in the next Ministerial, but this would be subject to onerous notification, transparency, anti-circumvention and safeguard requirements. All this was even more unfair given the fact that developed countries had managed to insert a ‘peace clause’ in the Uruguay Agreement on Agriculture that allowed them to continue with export subsidies and domestic support for ten years, without question.

The situation at Buenos Aires was so disheartening that India and China had to table a proposal stating that any further movement in Agriculture would be linked to the elimination of trade-distorting domestic support by developed countries. The G33 group of developing countries also tabled a proposal reiterating the need to immediately find a permanent solution to public stockholding of food grains and the special safeguard mechanism.

Another trend that began in the Bali Ministerial Conference, that of shying away from the use of the word ‘Doha’ or the phrase ‘Doha Development Agenda’, was witnessed in this Ministerial also.

The Dispute Settlement mechanism has been one of the pillars on which the reputation and fairness of WTO has rested. However, this mechanism was also struck a blow when the USA blocked the appointment of members to the appellate body.

On the other issues such as cotton and various flexibilities for LDCs, there was no progress. On fisheries subsidies, while there was some movement, the progress was only partial, with all countries agreeing to disciplines in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on fisheries subsidies. The UN SDGs on fisheries mandated to prohibit all fisheries subsidies that led to overfishing and overcapacity and eliminate all subsidies that contributed to illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing. Even here, developing countries like China and India were not in favour of an agreement for different reasons.

The MC11 at Buenos Aires ended without a Ministerial Declaration and without any movement on the core issues. This was worse than the 9th MC at Bali and 10th MC at Nairobi because at least these MCs had a declaration and Ministers did agree to some issues and a work programme for the future. More worrisome was the move to begin plurilateral negotiations on issues that were not agreed multilaterally at the WTO itself.

Conclusion

With another Ministerial failing, the real action on trade policy and trade negotiations appeared to be shifting to regional trade agreements (RTAs) and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) such as the APEC, Indo-Pacific Trade Agreement etc. Further, without the protective umbrella of the WTO and its Dispute Settlement mechanism, there was no check on unilateral measures such as tariff hikes and retaliatory moves, like the tariff wars that the US and China indulged in. Moreover, there was no clarity on how these would be resolved without the WTO Dispute Settlement. The credibility of the WTO was at an all-time low and only a miracle could take things forward. The work for the next MC was cut out and a huge target stared the WTO in the face.

The writer is Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Mass Education Extension and Library Services and Department of Cooperation, Government of West Bengal